Abstract
The technology industry is dominated by the ‘Big Five’ companies that continue to fuel today’s tech-driven economy. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft are the biggest players in the industry, making roughly $986.5B in combined revenue in 2021 in comparison to $736.9B in 202023. The staggering growth of the technology industry has caused an increased need for competition in productivity and innovation among these companies. This paper studies the price of innovation, which allows venture capitalists, financiers, and executives to get wealthier by the exploitation of workers. With staggering technological growth, there is a continued decline in wages, increasing inequality in the labor market. Nearly 9 in 10 jobs in the Silicon Valley Region, the heart of the tech-driven economy, pay lower wages today than they did 20 years ago24. Additionally, this paper will review the design of rules and regulations that ultimately give power to corporations to outsource costs and maximize profits, in return intensifying the already existing disparities in the labor market.
How to Cite
Fernando, S., (2022) “The Price of a Tech-Driven Economy on Labor”, Capstone, The UNC Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship 35(1).
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