WASHINGTON D.C. — “Joblessness is here to stay. One current assessment rates the chances a laid-off worker will ever regain his or her income level as only one in four,” said Edward Corcoran, a Senior Fellow on national security issues at GlobalSecurity.org.
I recently met with Corcoran for lunch at Kramerbooks, a bookstore/cafe combo within walking distance of the White House. (The location made it impossible to ignore President Barack Obama’s stupefying tone deafness to the severe unemployment problems facing millions of Americans.) Corcoran studies joblessness in part because he views it as a national security threat. High unemployment rates, especially among young workers, have led to protests in countries as varied as Latvia, Chile, Greece, Bulgaria and Iceland, and have contributed to strikes in Britain and France.
Over sandwiches, the security-and-technology expert reminded me that in primitive societies everyone works because they must, to provide essentials for survival. As societies become more industrially complex, fewer people are needed to produce essentials, so instead they produce luxury items and services designed to enrich everyone’s lives. In other words, here in America the need for a chicken in every pot has been superseded by the desire for a big-screen TV in every bedroom.
Corcoran believes the discrepancy between essential and non-essential services has reached an untenable proportion in the United States. Agriculture now occupies only about 1 percent of the U.S. working population. Manufacturing and construction — combined — now occupy only about 10 percent.
So what’s everyone else doing? In my neighborhood, it seems they’re going into the nail care business — there’s a professional manicure shop on nearly every block. But many non-essential services like this are the first to go during a recession. Here’s Corcoran on the can of worms created by replacing a manufacturing economy with a service economy:
Business services: The recent downsizing of white collar workers by many large corporations vividly demonstrated how flexible the concept of “essential” management is.
Financial services: Some of these workers are necessary for the functioning of the economy, but others helped undermine the economy. Many of the financial jobs lost this decade were not only nonessential but counterproductive.
Computer and information services: These services are the essential skeleton of a modern economy, for they control manufacturing lines and greatly increase the efficiency of office operations. However, many of these services are nonessential and even trivial — such as teenage text messaging and computer games.
Hospitality services: These workers support business travel, personal vacations, and simple pleasures such as dining out, but the recession starkly demonstrated how nonessential many of these services really are.
Religious and cultural services: They enrich our lives, but many of these services are nonessential and even frivolous.
Financial troubles have forced both corporations and households to reevaluate what is essential, causing many to conclude they can get by with less. This has left the U.S. with millions of extra workers, qualified people who cannot find work. Will their jobs ever come back? Corcoron is skeptical:
Jobs lost to globalization will probably never come back, and the shift of any significant number of manufacturing jobs back to the United States in the near term seems unlikely. Stricter regulation on financial services means many of these jobs will not come back either.
President Obama can create government jobs that ease the situation temporarily. But ideally new products will create new jobs and open new markets. Ironically China, not the U.S., is leading the global race to design and manufacture innovative clean energy equipment — a competition “based less on cheap labor and shoddy goods, but on sharp minds and long-term perspective,” said Corcoran, who believes U.S. joblessness is here to stay for at least a decade.
“Just over 70 percent of American workers hold jobs for which there is decreasing demand, increasing supply, or both,” added Corcoran. If he’s right, there’s more pain headed our way. In Harper’s magazine, Alan Tonelson argued the only way out is a resurgence of American manufacturing. You can read Tonelson’s essay here.
Read more: Energy, Small Business, Jobless Recovery, Bankruptcy, Retirement, Obama's Economic Team, Edward Corcoran, Diane Tucker, Barack Obama, Globalsecurity.org, Layoffs, Outsourcing, Financial Crisis Commission, Labor, Jobless Rate, Economic Stimulus Package, 26-Year-High-Unemployment, Inside DC, Careers, Financial Crisis, Jobless Claims, Personal Finance, Green Energy, Alan Tonelson, Harper's, The Lost Decade, Joblessness in America, Business News
