Unemployment Videos - The Documentary Network

Permanently Temporary: The Truth About Temp Labor

Documentary.net staff — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 18:29:27 +0000

Temp labor is one of the fastest growing industries in the US. Increasingly, temp workers are part of a business strategy to keep costs down and profits high. From mega-retailers to mom-and-pop shops, temps are hired to do some of the hardest and most dangerous jobs. While more and more of the American workforce is comprised of temporary workers, they're largely hidden from public view. Many of these workers stay silent, often having their livelihoods threatened if they speak out. Wanting to get a glimpse of this invisible workforce, VICE News traveled across the country, scouring warehouses, temp agencies, and temp towns in search of the people, who make our world of same day delivery possible.

I lost my Job

Documentary.net staff — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 15:02:32 +0000

I Lost My Job is a short documentary film which sets out to explore the phenomenon which is affecting and due to affect many people's lives - namely, technological unemployment. The documentary also examines what we can do about it as a society through the analysis of a transitional direction. Particular questions need to be raised about this subject. What are the social consequences of ongoing technological unemployment within our current economic system? How do we handle such a situation when this process is inevitable with the ongoing emergence of machine automation and new technologies taking over repetitive jobs?

The Top 1 Percent – Inequality in the US

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:56:27 +0000

The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it's been in almost a century — and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years. Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US' 14.3 trillion dollar debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above 9%, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programs that are the backbone of the US's social safety net, and whether to raise taxes — or to cut them further. The budget debate and the economy are the battleground on which the 2012 presidential election race will be fought. And the United States has never seemed so divided — both politically and economically. How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly? And how are the convictions, campaign contributions and charitable donations of the top 1% impacting the other 99% of Americans? The film investigates the gap between the rich and the rest.