Where Have All The Good Jobs Gone?

[5] Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;
[6] Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
[7] With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men:
Paul Letter to the Ephesians Chapter 6

Finally, the economy is producing new jobs. The most recent report indicates 200,000 new jobs per month. That number is larger than the approximately 125,000 new jobs per month necessary to keep up with population increase. At this rate it will take about nine years to recover the approximately 8,000,000 jobs lost in this most recent recession.

The problem is supply and demand. There are too many unemployed Americans chasing too few jobs. According to U.S. News and World Report, the new jobs are in low paying fields such as administrative and support services (median pay $12.91 per hour). Other growing fields listed in this article include retail, social assistance, and nursing homes. All of these areas pay less than $13.00 per hour. Higher paying jobs (defined as paying an average wage of $19.00) including utilities, finance, insurance, information services, and construction are still shedding jobs.

The civilian employment ratio (the percentage of Americans with jobs) hasn’t been this low since the recession of 1982, almost thirty years ago. The last time this number stood at 58.3% (read off a graph) during normal economic times, occurred in the 1970s before large numbers of women entered the workforce. Not surprisingly, fewer middle aged men are working today than at any time since WWII. In 1970 that number was 80%. Today it is only 66%. Since men have historically worked in higher paying fields like construction and manufacturing and women tend to work in lower paying fields like healthcare and education, real family income in inflation adjusted dollars has been dropping.

The new jobs don’t pay a good salary; don’t offer defined benefit pensions, health insurance, or security. In the past, a worker found his identity as a part of his union, or as an employee of his company. This is no longer a useful paradigm for new employees entering the work force, or for that matter, old employees reentering the workforce. Today, it is more useful for an employee to consider himself as self employed. Ultimately, the covenant between employer and employee has been broken. Expecting anything more than a paycheck for the work done today will too often lead to disappointment.

What this means is the average employee is in trouble. Many years ago when I worked as a shift superintendent at a factory, I noted that about 1 out of 5 employees were just good employees. It didn’t matter how much they were paid, how badly they were treated, or if they were provided with good working conditions. They were just good employees. Likewise, about 1 out of 5 were just bad employees. It didn’t matter if they had good compassionate supervision, a tolerable work environment, or good pay. They were lazy, unreliable, and frequently dishonest employees. It was their nature. I found it difficult to fire these people. I was always inclined to believe that if I gave them one more chance, I could find a way to motivate them. I should have been quicker to fire these people. I concluded that about 3 out of 5 employees were just average. If they received a reasonable salary, were treated with respect, and didn’t have to suffer poor working conditions they did a reasonably good job. In today’s economy average isn’t good enough. There are always people who will receive promotions and raises in any work environment. In the past, average people would move up the same pay scale as outstanding employees. Their progress would be slower and they would not reach the same levels as outstanding employees but they could look forward to regular promotion unless they really screwed up. Today that is no longer true.

This brings us back to the hard exhortation at the beginning of the post. In the context of the times, the apostle is telling slaves to be good slaves. He is telling them to offer their masters respect and obedience just as they offer respect and obedience to the Lord. That kind of attitude will work in any economic environment, but how often I fall short of that mark.