Question

Step 5: How have labor costs helped shape what we buy?

Answer 1

Historically, automation has been one of the biggest ways to reduce labor costs in a business. This will probably continue as AI becomes more flexible and capable.

However, a lot of current businesses are reducing labor costs by outsourcing major aspects of their business, paying a fixed amount for results, and letting someone else deal with the costs of hiring, supervising, and firing employees. There are some gray areas where firms are having things done by people they describe as “independent contractors,” but who are being supervised like employees. And even when the individual is indeed an independent contractor (frex, someone who is driving for Uber, Lyft, and Diner Dash, picking up whichever gigs pay the best from moment to moment), often the person thinking more like an employee than an entrepreneur, putting their money from their gigs straight into their account as if it were a paycheck, not considering the expenses of their gig work as business expenses, etc.