The theory that many people feel the work they do is pointless because their jobs are "bullshit" has been confirmed by a new study.
The theory that many people feel the work they do is pointless because their jobs are "bullshit" has been confirmed by a new study.
The research found that people working in finance, sales and managerial roles are much more likely than others on average to think their jobs are useless or unhelpful to others.
The study, by Simon Walo, of Zurich University, Switzerland, is the first to give quantitative support to a theory put forward by the American anthropologist David Graeber in 2018 that many jobs were "bullshit"—socially useless and meaningless.
Researchers had since suggested that the reason people felt their jobs were useless was solely because they were routine and lacked autonomy or good management rather than anything intrinsic to their work, but Mr. Walo found this was only part of the story.
He analyzed survey data on 1,811 respondents in the U.S. working in 21 types of jobs, who were asked if their work gave them "a feeling of making a positive impact on community and society" and "the feeling of doing useful work."
The American Working Conditions Survey, carried out in 2015, found that 19% of respondents answered "never" or "rarely" to the questions whether they had "a feeling of making a positive impact on community and society" and "of doing useful work" spread across a range of occupations.
Mr. Walo adjusted the raw data to compare workers with the same degree of routine work, job autonomy and quality of management, and found that in the occupations Graeber thought were useless, the nature of the job still had a large effect beyond these factors.
Those working in business and finance and sales were more than twice as likely to say their jobs were socially useless than others. Managers were 1.9 more likely to say this and office assistants 1.6 times.
"David Graeber's 'bullshit jobs' theory claims that some jobs are in fact objectively useless, and that these are found more often in certain occupations than in others," says the study, published in the journal Work, Employment and Society.
"Graeber hit a nerve with his statement. His original article quickly became so popular that within weeks it was translated into more than a dozen languages and reprinted in different newspapers around the world.
"However, the original evidence presented by Graeber was mainly qualitative, which made it difficult to assess the magnitude of the problem.
"This study extends previous analyses by drawing on a rich, under-utilized dataset and provides new evidence.
"It finds that working in one of the occupations highlighted by Graeber significantly increases the probability that workers perceive their jobs as socially useless, compared to all others. This article is therefore the first to find quantitative evidence supporting Graeber's argument."
Law was the only occupation cited by Graeber as useless where Mr. Walo found no statistically significant evidence that staff found their jobs meaningless.
Mr. Walo also found that the share of workers who consider their jobs socially useless is higher in the private sector than in the non-profit or the public sector.
More information: Simon Walo, "Bullshit" After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs Socially Useless, Work, Employment and Society (2023). DOI: 10.1177/09500170231175771
I feel very lucky I've been in a position to be somewhat picky about work. When I was last doing a job search I was very up front about wanting a job I felt good about.
One recruiter was like "we're like Uber, but for rich people hiring jets!" Hard pass my dude.
I also turned down an advertising job. I just didn't want to participate in creeping on people to try to sell crap.
Nowhere is perfect but I'm glad I don't work in the "help megacorps figure out who to buy" finance sector anymore
Its really a privilege to be picky about where to work. Many people don't have that luxury but its worthwhile for everyone for those who can to continue to do so. It forces companies to step up their game to retain and attract high value employees. I did the same thing when searching for jobs with a large emphasis to avoid health insurance which has tons of jobs but are low pay, bad benefits and pretty evil
I know a guy who works for a government contractor making stuff and he says none of his stuff even makes it to the field. They just keep getting bids and making stuff but it’s usually obsolete before they finish. Totally useless. Been that way for 10 years.
Sure, when you compare it to something like sales or office work, there's going to be a significant difference.
But the fact that 1/10 healthcare professionals feel that their work is “pointless” is upsetting, since they can quite literally save someone's life with the work they do.
We need to let more doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers know how important they are.
I would say repair is the most important one there and dont under stand why they feel the job is useless. Like phone repair etc I can understand as most people buy a new phone. But building repairs and electrical etc are some of the most important things now
I actually work on transportation and I can tell you.. for that stuff I am put in place, I cannot do anything about it. I'm just watching numbers and "bridging" every week the same stuff with the same actions.
When it comes to real deal stuff to do something about stuff hitting the fan, another department is in charge.
So I am riding Excel every day and playing on my phone, getting paid a decent amount. Maybe once a month my knowledge is actually needed.
That is a bad survey question. It's wrong to equate jobs that involve little social/community value with fully useless "bullshit" jobs.
Anyone in sales is not helping the community, they are selling a product or service to make themselves and their company money. They often do a ton of actual work and make a ton of change, but it's business competition, not social change. And it's the same for a lot of jobs. They are doing work and would be noticed if they were gone, it's just in the service of economic growth and not social change.