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.

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Distinguishing Between Questioning Value & Cost of Education

Tertiary education is too expensive. But this doesn't mean people shouldn't go to university, even graduate school. The more educated a population is, the more capacity there is for high-value added economic activities. Since the start of the recession -- moreover the jobless recovery-- there is a trend over questioning the value of higher education without distinguishing between 'value' and cost. If this distinction isn't made, we risk never fully recovering from recession and damaging our economies ability to perform in the future.

This recent piece from the NYT about a law school grad who can't get a job is indicative of the failure I'm talking about.

To sum: the article is about a recent law school grad who can't get a legal job sufficient to pay his rent let alone his student debt. The article partly lays blame on the flailing economy, partly on unethical (thus resultingly false) statistical practices, but fails to question whether the value of the degree itself is inflated especially for future market demands.

There are a few subtle points I'd like to make: US education has gotten too expensive. Most Bachelor's coursework is already outdated. Education needs to be recast so students understand that their degrees are what you make of them.

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What lost generation?

OUTRAGE! Is anybody else between the ages of 20 and 30 tired of being written off by the media as a 'lost generation'? It's utter nonesense!

It's true employment is down, and we have more debt than previous generations (also, thanks to previous generations)-- education, ecological, credit card, etc.  But we're being judged on recently failed economic paradigms: measuring growth, creditworthiness, even what is and is not valuable within or to a society are all paradigms that are now in transition.  The media is quick to trumpet how the financial system and most of the things we know about economics are now defunct, so why is it still making value judgements on those paradigms?

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