What triggers mass RGO unemployment every game?

[KevinG]

I know 99.9999999% of people who have played this game never bother looking at the POP screen, but for those of us who do pay attention we all know that at some point in the game, usually starting around 1860s to 1880s, there is a worldwide economic crash. The starting point is actually different for each of my playthroughs, but it always happens eventually. RGOs go from full employment to 30%+ in the span of a year.

I remember discovering that POP demotion, which is fueled mostly by unemployment, is way better at producing craftsmen that promotion, like upwards of 2-3x more effective. I posted my thoughts on this a long time ago and one of the devs said something to me along the lines of they designed it so that demotion was supposed to be the biggest factor in industrialization.

So this big economic crash may be WAD, but I want to know how and why it happens. Is this just another black box in vicky's economy that I'm wasting my time trying to figure out?

 

[EllisDee]

RGOs that produce goods with low demand end up with unemployment.
So all the goods with a naturally low demand, and all the goods which aren't processable (Coffee, Wool, Grain, Cattle, Fish) end up producing things that nobody has need of. If nobody needs them, they're not being sold on the market, and if they're not being sold, they're not being paid ---> unemployment.

With Grain, you can try spamming more Liquor factories. Or if you're a big country, go conquer a high-pop part of China. Another million people in your country means another million people to buy the useless goods.
Other than that, the only thing you can do is set your stockpile to buy goods nobody wants. Works with Coffee.

If you're using the beta patch, that's probably another reason for unemployment. It makes the tool inventions apply globally, so a couple +% RGO efficiency modifiers means maaaaaaaassive over-production...

 

[Bella Gerant]

go conquer a high-pop part of China

Spoiler

On the other hand, this is also a good way to protect the world economy. Once China westernizes, starts getting RGO efficiency techs, and industrializes...This is why you never let China westernize.

 

[KevinG]

Its not as simple as RGO efficiency techs = mass unemployment. I made a test a game by giving every civilized country 15 industry techs and the commerce techs that increase mining/farming efficiency in 1836. It had no effect on unemployment for the first 30 years of the game. By the time mass unemployment hit it was already past 1860 which is when it would normally occur anyway. Demand was able to keep pace with supply which prevented the unemployment in the early game, despite every country already producing goods at 1880's level efficiency.

 

[Searry]

Once techonologies reach a certain point RGO's become so efficient there isn't enough demand to meet the production. At this point you should industrialize if you've invested in literacy. I also suggest militarizing the state from the beginning so unemployement is minimal.

 

[Greybeard0815]

I don't believe the demand explanation. At least not fully. I had cases where provinces with rubber or oil had 99% unemployment and this definitly can not be explained by lacking demand.

 

[KevinG]

Once techonologies reach a certain point RGO's become so efficient there isn't enough demand to meet the production. At this point you should industrialize if you've invested in literacy. I also suggest militarizing the state from the beginning so unemployement is minimal.

If you read my post you'd know that's not exactly true. Test it for yourself. Edit a savegame and give everyone extra industry techs at the start. It won't cause massive unemployment at the start of the game.

 

[EllisDee]

If you read my post you'd know that's not exactly true. Test it for yourself. Edit a savegame and give everyone extra industry techs at the start. It won't cause massive unemployment at the start of the game.

Well, a 50% increase to a medium-sized RGO isn't gonna make that big a difference. You'd need pop in the RGOs to go with it. Of course then there's the argument that the pops should generate demand, but then you've gotta look at income.
It seems like there can be demand for goods, but not buyers. Like when a province converts to Oil: there's always demand for Oil, but i guess not everyone can afford it, so you often see the RGO not getting filled up.

There's lots of behind-the-scenes weirdness, but demand is definitely the major cause. In my game i had big chunks of stuff like cattle and grain farmers unemployed. I snagged a big chunk of China and suddenly they stopped being unemployed because they had a place to dump their goods. Low taxes so people can afford things is a must.

 

[KevinG]

For what its worth I was researching this topic to see if I could induce this mass unemployment earlier. Mass unemployment speeds industrialization which is my main goal.

 

[grimkm]

I generally only see this in colonial provinces where you can't build factories. Am I missing something?