The 2016 election gave you a reason not to buy stuff on Black Friday
On Black Friday each year, consumers kick off the “holiday shopping season” by getting so excited about a discount on a new TV that they’ve managed to kill seven people in stampedes—and injure 98 more—over the last decade.
More recently, however, younger demographics have been countering that consumer frenzy in favor of spending money on experiences, if the trend pieces in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Forbes, CNBC, and other publications are to be believed. People, studies have show, are happier spending on trips, meals, movies, courses, and other experiences than on a new tech thing or sweet pair of shoes.
But there’s another reason to put those Black Friday dollars elsewhere besides your own personal happiness—a reason that got a significant amount of airtime in the 2016 presidential election. Yup, we’re talking about jobs.
It would be silly to say Black Friday and Cyber Monday don’t do anything to support American jobs, besides provide longer hours for seasonal holiday workers in the supply chain, logistics business, and store floors. (Though the move to online retailers probably doesn’t help job creation.) But at the end of the day, Black Friday goods, like most things bought and sold in the US are made elsewhere.
Even if you go out and buy something that is made in the US, it might not make that much of a difference when it comes to jobs. American manufacturing has never been stronger than it is now—it’s just that technology and automation has eaten into employment. Even if the US were to repatriate jobs, the move to automation will continue. It’s not like robots aren’t taking jobs in Asia either.
If you look deep into November, bookended by the election and its focus on manufacturing jobs and Cyber Monday, an interesting symmetry emerges. Some of the most difficult jobs to offshore are the ones that provide consumers with experiences they tend to cherish more than they would a new iPad or golf shirt.
Broadly speaking, spending your money on services—like dining out, going to shows, or joining a gym—keeps more of that money in the States, firming up the job market. Not only do the tourism, restaurant, and other entertainment industries seem well steeled against the rise of the machines, they are immune to international undercutting unless a teleport is invented.
Sometimes a person, in front of you, has no robotic or far-away substitute. Even the coffee machines, despite decades of technological R&D, cannot match a barista or curious consumer with a gooseneck kettle and a human tongue, something a machine will never have.
Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumerism, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann.
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