Dismal prospects for decent jobs

Edward Luce

Financial Times

There may be no fix for America’s “increasingly sclerotic jobs market,” said Edward Luce. The jobs that once made the U.S.’s middle class the envy of the world are disappearing. We used to be able to count on cycles of “creative destruction”; jobs were lost during recessions, but new ones appeared in more productive sectors when the economy perked up again. Now we have “destruction minus the creativity.”

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The few jobs the economy is managing to create are the least productive. Of the five occupations expected to grow the fastest between now and 2018, “none requires a degree.” Inefficient sectors like home health care and food preparation are flourishing only because “neither China nor computers” can take them over.

If the solution to fixing unemployment were simple, someone would have thought of it. But because there’s “no precedent for the challenges America faces,” there’s little consensus on what to do. Plenty of half-cures have been proposed: a better education system, more infrastructure spending, a “sensible immigration policy.” But none of those worthy reforms is likely to solve the plight of the middle class. Unfortunately, it’s unclear if anything will.