As if workers were ever not replaceable
Infinitely so
The message “Everybody’s Replaceable” in a recent Wall Street Journal headline[1] isn’t nearly so new as the headline suggests. I remember hearing that when I was a young, foolish, overconfident computer programmer just entering the workforce in the late 1970s, sure that I would find the job security my father enjoyed.
Indeed, since finishing my Ph.D. in 2016, I’ve been stuck in the gig economy, where every communication is threatening: I am not merely replaceable, but infinitely so. The companies may call you a ‘valued’ worker but they do so in the same breath as they warn that violations of “community standards” (that they control) could lead to your suspension or termination from the “platform.”
So I knew it had to sting management hard when, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, they had trouble finding workers (at rock bottom wages). “Nobody wants to work anymore,” I heard again and again as I drove for Uber and my own search for real employment continued to flounder.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Nearly one quarter of U.S. private-sector businesses, employing 54 million workers, increased wages and salaries, paid wage premiums, or paid bonuses because of the COVID-19 pandemic.”[2] The rest just kept on complaining even as considerable anecdotal evidence suggested that finding workers became a lot less difficult for employers offering higher wages and better conditions.[3]
The backlash wasn’t long in coming with “return to office” mandates that employees apparently continue, even now, to resist. And now we’re seeing layoffs, in part due to the uncertainty that Donald Trump introduced with his tariffs, in part because artificial idiocy is displacing workers,[4] and, of course, in part because bosses really enjoy economically and emotionally exploiting their power relationship with workers.
I remember in the 1970s—even then—sensing that triumphalism when economic elites boasted about how “everyone” was replaceable. And since then I’ve noticed it is only ever them who say it. I’ve certainly not overlooked the crocodile tears they shed when accompanying round after round of layoffs with apparent whining about “tough decisions.”
Funny thing: They never lay themselves off.
[1] Chip Cutter, “‘Everybody’s Replaceable’: The New Ways Bosses Talk About Workers,” Wall Street Journal, May 11, 2025, https://apple.news/AaadylOrQSlisIJ3bK5aNBQ
[2] Bureau of Labor Statistics, “24 percent of establishments increased pay or paid bonuses because of COVID-19 pandemic,” February 18, 2022, https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/24-percent-of-establishments-increased-pay-or-paid-bonuses-because-of-covid-19-pandemic.htm
[3] Abha Bhattarai, “Retail workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work: ‘My life isn’t worth a dead-end job,’” Washington Post, June 21, 2021https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/21/retail-workers-quitting-jobs/; Heather Long, “It’s not a ‘labor shortage.’ It’s a great reassessment of work in America,” Washington Post, May 7, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/07/jobs-report-labor-shortage-analysis/; Helaine Olen, “How to solve the worker shortage? Improve pay and other conditions,” Washington Post, March 10, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/10/worker-shortage-familiar-story-low-pay-poor-conditions/; Robert Reich, “There is no US labor shortage. That’s a myth,” Guardian, January 15, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/there-is-no-us-labor-shortage-thats-a-myth; Eli Rosenberg, “These businesses found a way around the worker shortage: Raising wages to $15 an hour or more,” Washington Post, June 10, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/10/worker-shortage-raising-wages/
[4] Chip Cutter, “‘Everybody’s Replaceable’: The New Ways Bosses Talk About Workers,” Wall Street Journal, May 11, 2025, https://apple.news/AaadylOrQSlisIJ3bK5aNBQ