Graeber initially put forward the concept of ‘bullshit jobs’ – jobs that even those who do them view as worthless – in his 2013 essay The Democracy Project.
He further expanded this theory in his 2018 book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, looking at possible reasons for the existence of such jobs.
But his theory is not based on any reliable empirical data, even though he puts forward several propositions, all of which are testable.”.
According to Graeber, somewhere between 20% and 50% of the workforce – possibly as many as 60% - are employed in BS jobs.
Yet the EWCS found that just 4.8% of EU workers said they did not feel they were doing useful work.
Graeber also claimed that the number of BS jobs has been ‘increasing rapidly in recent years’, despite presenting no empirical evidence.
Soffia, M, Wood, AJ and Burchell, B. Alienation Is Not ‘Bullshit’: An Empirical Critique of Graeber’s Theory of BS Jobs. »