Demand, and the demand for jobs
an oldie I stumbled on.. still fits..(unfortunately)
SoCalDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Wed Jul-08-09 04:44 AM
Original message
Where do jobs "come from"?
There are the jobs "provided" by mega corporations (which are contracting like a fully dilated pregnant woman these days). These jobs are in tiers
...building/making the actual product
...packaging the product
...selling the product
..."managing" the people doing the above tasks
There are jobs provided by small/family businesses (those are usually reserved for family-members only, and are often without much/any real pay).And, the definition of "small" needs to be re-defined too.
There are "farm" jobs, which are low pay, hard work and pretty much on-call 24-7. (also usually reserved for family only)
There are "off the books jobs" (usually in landscaping/construction/painting/flooring/tiling, etc, and are negotiated and often the people doing the jobs, take a lot less than they should, to GET the job)
There are government jobs..federal/ state/ county/ municipal.. (these jobs are great to have, but are tied to budget cutting, and can be gone in a heartbeat, or with an administration change)
There are retail/service jobs ( these are very sensitive to "the bottom line", and are often seasonal, and rarely have set-schedules or any benefits to speak of)
There are "professional" jobs that require lots of "pull" and degrees to get, (and student debt) but once IN the job, many involve long hours at desks, pushing piles of papers around, and composing at a computer.
There are "technical" jobs, that also require significant education/degrees to obtain.
Jobs are totally reliant upon someone else being on the "other" end of that job..on the receiving end.
Doctors need patients
Salesmen need customers
Agricultural workers need customers with money to spend on the food they grow
Producers of goods need buyers of goods
Purveyors of services need people who want/need that service
Government jobs even need people on the receiving end of their labors.
TSA people must have travelers to search & wand...
Mail carriers must have people living in houses with mail boxes...Teachers need students
Our government is faced with a big ole dilemma. Propping up consumerism, back to the 70%-service bubble we have become used to, is no solution, because so many people are already out of the bubble, flat on their backs, in debt, and jobless. If they found a job tomorrow, they would still be down and out for a few years (or more).
Creating "new" businesses out of thin air is not a solution either, because the people who have a job , with insurance benefits cannot afford to "go it alone" and start a business that will most likely fail, and will provide their families with NO benefits. People who have the time, and who are already out of work, have no money to start a business.
I don't see a "solution", because we seem to have forgotten the basics of supply & demand.
Somehow our businesses morphed into behemoth corporations with more layers of complexity and debt than a $50K wedding cake. Everything became all about "the market" and "the street", and nothing is about the actual products and/or customers anymore.
No amount of "stimulus" seems to alleviate the problem. Giving money to the banks only made them more solvent (and they still hid their bad stuff..and still have it). Giving money to repair infrastructure helps some, but it focuses on a small sliver of the economy. Giving money to the people does not even work, since many use(d) it to repay debts for stuff they already consumers (sometimes years ago).
Creating "green jobs" is great for the future, but people are going to be reluctant to put solar panels on a house that's a month shy of foreclosure.
Propping up the auto industry does little, if people are afraid/too broke to buy a new car.
We need a serious "Daddy-lays-it-all-out" heart-to-heart talk about just how much trouble we are in, and how we have to completely change the way we do things.
We still have people alive, who have lived this way, and who know how to do it. We have the capacity to change our economy, but politicians know that their jobs are on the line if they actually vote for changes we need, instead of changes we think we want.
There are a LOT of people who will never again have meaningful work in their lifetime, since the jobs they worked at for a long time, are just flat-out over. Asking a 45 year old to "go back to school & get retrained" is no solution, since he /she probably has a family to support, and has no money to pay for the training...and who's to say that there will even BE a job when the schooling is over.
We've managed to meander our way into a huge mess, and it's becoming apparent that no one in charge seems to be able to fix it, and the people they call their "partners in business" , having eaten golden eggs for a long time, are fully prepared to eat the goose & leave us all a pile of feathers.
