COMMENT With official unemployment in the US hovering around 10 per cent, and actual levels much higher when the underemployed and discouraged are counted, the most urgent priority is job creation. But efforts to get America working again must be informed by the striking fact that most employment growth in the past decade has been concentrated in three sectors: healthcare, education and government, mostly state and local public services.
The rise of the health/ed/gov super-sector flies in the face of two popular predictions about “the jobs of the future”. In the 1990s, advocates of the new economy argued that we would increasingly depend on what Robert Reich, the former labour secretary, called “symbolic analyst” jobs. But the vision of a nation of techies was oversold. Silicon Valley and its silicon siblings have transferred not only manufacturing but also design to countries with lower wages and more government subsidies to business. The technology jobs that are expected to grow most rapidly are those of office tech specialists – who in effect are clerical staff. A world-class technology sector will transform the economy and generate tax revenue but will create relatively few jobs.
