Rise of purple collar jobs
Editor’s note
Nag and I talk about AI all the time. A bit too much. And we also talk about the economy, jobs, economic inequality. A recent school conversation inspired Nag to use his looking glass and imagine what the future of jobs could look like. This article is deliberately provocative. Some of you will resonate with it. Others will disagree vehemently. That’s by design, not accident. Let the conversation begin.
Is any industry good for white collar professionals anymore?
Reliance has quietly laid off 42,000 people. I’m sure there are Caribbean nations with fewer people.
Unilever is eliminating a third of office jobs in Europe. There’s apparently only so much soap consumers can buy. Who knew?!
Investment bankers (for whom I shed copious tears) are getting cut in droves too. Being a college professor used to be a safe job. Used to be.
IT, that great refuge of the middle class over the last 30 years, has been shaky too. Even developers at the mAgNiFicEnT sEvEn and beyond, can be laid off. At the opposite end of the coolness spectrum, Cognizant now pays techies $1.5/hr, while presumably billing them at $20/hr. Starting salaries in low-end Indian IT used to be $6,000 in 2006. We’re now at… $3,000, with 1% annual raises.
Meanwhile, the roster and wealth of the billionaire class keeps expanding at breakneck speed. It’s the only part of the economy that’s growing - some toddlers may soon join their ranks.
The new feudalism
Social structures in a lot of countries are starting to resemble pre-Revolutionary France. A tiny minority (let’s call them the nouveau royalty) has unimaginable wealth; the rest of us have unending precarity.
The nouveau royal class has started to flaunt it all. In the coming decades, that’ll happen even more. The new professional class will increasingly work to cater to every whim of the nouveau royals. They'll work purple collar personal service jobs. It’s the hot growth industry of the immediate future.
Why purple? Because it’s the colour of royalty. But also because purple has a lot of blue; purple jobs involve physical labour too, like blue collar jobs.
Emotional labour
Personal service jobs require brawn, brain and some technical competence, but also what the sociologist Arlie Hoschchild calls “emotional labour”. Purple collar workers are expected to regulate their personas during interactions with the nouveau royalty. Unlike plumbers or programmers, they’re in it to provide emotional pleasure.
Smile all the time. Or at least grin and bear it. Flatter regularly (“Your photos are so creative, Master Cruz”). Indulge them. Smell nice, but not too distinctive. Suppress the urge to roll eyes or scream at the client’s stupidity. Say nothing that could be construed as controversial. Have the self-awareness to recede into the background in the presence of important people.
Wodehouse’s Jeeves: patron saint of the purple collar class (public domain image)
The entire gig is to boost the client’s ego - produce the desired emotional state in the client. Deep acting is a necessary skill in each of these:
Caddie
Dog walker
Personal barista
Saree draping artist
Governess to children
Personal surfing coach
High-end event manager
Personal pilates instructor
Urban home landscape gardener
Wedding photographer to the elite
Cheerleader on annual sports day
Exotic destination wedding planner
Skipper of an ultra-luxury African safari
Lifestyle manager (“Get me Wimbledon tickets, with a side of strawberries & cream”)
Even if AI could automate some of these jobs, the royal class would prefer humans to serve them - even the nouveau royalty is a social species. They’d consider it a flex to pay high skills humans to be tethered to them, catering to their every desire. A living, breathing version of browser cookies.
Get your children ready for purple collar jobs. They won’t like it much - smiling that perma-smile will alienate them from their true selves. It’s a hard gig playing Jeeves to a landed gent.
But what choice have they got?
