An abundance of “pointless jobs” is behind the world’s stagnant productivity levels: The service sector seems to have created an abundance of “pointless jobs which could be eliminated with absolutely no loss to society,” Mark Buchanan writes for Bloomberg. A new book by anthropologist David Graeber claims that businesses in this age are less concerned about creating value and more concerned about solidifying and maximizing their existing wealth and stature, which ultimately resulted in the existence of jobs that feel unfulfilling, unrewarding, and probably cost more than they’re worth.

It’s all about control: These jobs — which according to surveys are typically found in fields including public relations, human resources, corporate law, finance and banking, etc. — are “generated naturally out of the corporate managerial struggle for influence, status and control of resources,” Graeber argues. A UK-government funded 2012 review of financial markets, for example, “concluded that lots of finance is senseless zero-sum activity that drains investment away from useful enterprise.” Another study by MIT economist Xavier Gabaix found that the wealthiest among us nowadays “have skewed the playing field in their favor, finding ways — such as access to better information, legal or tax planning services — to capture more of the profits coming from productive work.”

Is that really so bad, you ask? The lack of “real value” in many of the jobs that people is the likely culprit behind the world’s slowing levels of productivity, Buchanan argues. Around 37% of the participants in a 2015 survey in the UK said that they believed their jobs “did not make meaningful contribution to the world.” A similar survey in the Netherlands “found 40% saying the same thing.” So perhaps, Buchanan suggests, that a shift in philosophy towards solving problems, rather than turning a profit, is in order.

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