Jobless Recovery As Conceptual Creative Economy Transition?

Is growth in temporary jobs really an indicator of a weak jobs recovery? Or an indicator of a transitionary conceptual economy (Pink) picking up speed?

Very recently I wrote this post about how America’s ‘1 million jobs created in 2010’ headlines were meaningless unless qualified. According to the US Current Employment Statistics Survey, the US economy is adding part-time and contract labour faster than most other jobs.  The number of people working part-time for economic reasons as well as those who have become self-employed is up, but not by much in 2010 on 2009. I also cited reports (rather unscientific) that online job postings are up.

Traditionally, growth in part-time, temporary, and contract work has meant unstable and unfavourable economic conditions for workers. Why? Simply, part-time workers don’t tend to get benefits like health care or tutition re-imbursement. They are usually the first to be fired when things like tax conditions, social security (national insurance), and fixed-asset spending change.

I spend most of my year in the UK where the reduction in the unemployment rate has meant -- in effect-- a jobless jobs recovery. The national unemployment has fallen, according to the ONS (Office of National Statistics) due to growth in part-time and temporary/contract jobs.

From the Guardian:
“The ONS reported that the number of employees and self-employed people who were working part-time because they could not find a full-time job increased by 26,000 in the three months to November, to 1.16 million. This is the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992.”

The latest quarterly data taken in aggregate shows that the number of people working part-time has begun to fall along with overall employment.

The UK government recently scrapped a jobs creator: the Future Jobs Fund which encouraged hiring in the social entrepreneurship sector, a major front in the expansion of the conceptual economy.

From Social Enterprise Live:
“Weighing into the debate Social Enterprise London (SEL) CEO Allison Ogden-Newton said SEL used the fund to create 500 positions in 32 London social enterprises with 65 per cent of those placements converted into continuing paid employment.”

I’m also reading for my PhD right now: Robinson The Element and Pink’s A Whole New Mind. Both authors discuss the movement towards a creative or conceptual economy (I’ll stick social enterprise under these classifications).

Where everything might be looking like a job for an axe, I still wonder whether future economists will read this as the mirepoix for the conceptual creative transition?

A worrying development though is recurring national dialogues in both the US and UK about the purpose of higher education.  The attitude is this: why go to university and pay all this money when you won’t get a job on the other end. In Robinson, Pink, and Florida education is the key to a conceptual transition. Education trends in the near future need to be watched.

What is clear is that right now the transition can go either way and national economies (n.b. not governments, necessarily) must be very careful to continue to encourage SMEs, bank lending, and education whilst rewarding non-paying economic participation.