An Ignored Factor in Job Loss and Job Change: The “Working Consumer”

The McKinsey Global Institute’s November, 2017 report deals with the future of work (including job loss and change) through 2030, especially in light of automation (and AI). While the report covers a wide array of causes of job change and loss, it, as is usually the case in economic reports, has nothing to say about the role of unpaid non-marketized “working consumers” (a kind of prosumer) in these changes. This omission is especially striking because the report does discuss the implications of the shift from unpaid non-marketized occupations (those that do such domestic work as “childcare, early childhood education, cleaning, cooking and gardening”) to others that are presumably paid and marketized (e.g., workers in the previously non-marketized occupations who are employed by agencies that sell their services in a broader marketplace). The non-marketized unpaid work performed by prosumers is far more important economically than that of the occupations discussed by the report. Further, unlike domestic workers prosumers are not likely to be marketized any time soon.

Among the many examples of the working consumer are prosumers bypassing the services of tellers and doing their own banking via the internet or on ATMs, doing all of the work involved in making purchases (of all manner of goods and services; for example, buying airline tickets online and bypassing travel agents), serving as their own wait- and bus-persons in fast food restaurants, pumping their own gasoline at self-service stations, and so on. While it is the case that this shift to the working consumer leads to the creation of new paid jobs (computer-related occupations relating to the burgeoning online sites), it is likely, at least in the short run, that job loss far exceeds those gains.

The source of the problem lies in the fact that the McKinsey researchers, as well as other economists and technicians associated with these kinds of reports, lack the concept of the prosumer. As a result they are unable to see, let alone analyze and quantify, the prosumer’s role in job change, primarily job loss. While the concept of the prosumer is gaining increasing attention in sociology (and other fields), it has yet to be noticed by economists. Yet, prosumers are doing infinitely more unpaid, non-marketized work than, for example, domestic workers.

It is also worth noting that advances in automation and IT will bring with them an increase in “prosuming machines” that produce and consume largely on their own. Such machines are likely to lead to significant job loss in the future.  For example, autonomous vehicles will be a cause of job loss for Uber, taxi, truck drivers, as well as those in associated occupations. However, far greater job loss will result from the interaction of working consumers and prosuming machines (e.g. the use of ATMs rather than human bank tellers).