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September 17, 2005
What "Little House on the Prairie" can teach us about Structural Unemployment
Asymmetrical Information has a succinct post about the differences between "structural unemployment" and "cyclical unemployment" ...
What that means is that when the industrial composition of our economy changes, because machines can do some jobs better than people (word processors instead of secretaries), because other countries can do some things better than we can (Chinese-manufactured electronics), or simply because some markets got overcrowded (telecoms and web retailers), it takes a lot longer for employment to adjust than it used to, because workers' skills are very specific to their old industries or jobs. This sort of unemployment is known as "structural unemployment", as opposed to "cyclical unemployment", which happens when companies lay off workers they expect to rehire in the future as a result of temporary downturns in demand.
"Structural Unemployment," by Jane Galt, Asymmetrical Information, September 16, 2005
And reading through the comments, you can see the many different jobs people have held ...
Jobs I've held since the age of 14: dishwasher, pizza maker, cashier, grocery store bag boy and stocker, construction laborer, gas station attendant, micro-business owner (lawn mowing, snow shoveling), janitor, freelance legal researcher, taxi owner and driver, law clerk, attorney, CLE administrator, editor (print and electronic), managing editor, new product developer, trainer, marketer, manager, consultant, publisher ... and the occupations I gave some thought to and took some preliminary steps towards include financial planner, college professor, and carpenter.
With three children, I'm coming to believe that the only thing college is good for is (increasingly bad) signaling that the holder of a degree is somewhat literate (not numerate, however), and can probably communicate in spoken, although not necessarily written, form.
When we hire people, we always ask candidates what kind of customer service jobs they have held. It is amazing to me how many candidates think that a couple of years during their teens or twenties of learning to deal with people by being a waiter/waitress, hostess, cashier, retail store clerk, laborer, telemarketer, etc., are not relevant to their abilities. Because we see that the folks who have held unskilled labor type entry level jobs dealing with people are often more tolerant, better listeners, not so arrogant, more easily trainable, and become better colleagues.
Posted at September 17, 2005 09:02 AM | Categories: Economics
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