The Leasure Age

It's a wonder, really, that we've kept so many people employed over the years, even though 'automation' and IT have purportedly taken over the workplace. Presumably, a sideways move into welfare, admin and other services can explain this paradox. 

Until now.

Although the number of official vacancies remains steady at around a million, the sideways movement in recent years has been into free time, rather than alternative jobs. Ten million people of working age are now economically inactive, ten million are part-time workers and around fifteen million are retired. Even older children are apparently giving up on Saturday jobs.

The implications of increased freedom are perhaps more threatening than at first sight. Not least, the problem of how society will pay for it, with diminishing income tax revenue, increasing social security costs, redline limits on government loans and dubious productivity increases with an opt out workforce. 

Will we just bury our heads in sport, holidays, food banks and virtual reality? Are we destined to get fatter and madder in the isolation of our own little worlds? Or will there be a devastating reaction, when the basic commodities of life begin to run out? There is surely a limit to how many people can remove themselves from ignominious toil, before economic breakdown begins to occur.

The elephant in the room looks more like a restless herd to me....