Image courtesy daquella manera.
Yes, un-employment is a problem.
But what about under-employment– where people have a “job”, but are working in areas that don’t use their full potential?
How can we solve this issue?
Image courtesy daquella manera.
Yes, un-employment is a problem.
But what about under-employment– where people have a “job”, but are working in areas that don’t use their full potential?
How can we solve this issue?
October 10, 2007 at 20:43
I’m going to be cynical on this one–who’s to say there IS a problem?
Yes, I agree there are many people that COULD be doing more, but (at least in market economies) the very fact that people are working where they are is, by definition, evidence that they are where the MARKET determines they are being best-used.
I think the flaw in this question is that there isn’t really ANY “job” that can use someone’s **full-potential** anyway. By definition, a “job” is a market exchange between someone’s time (including their talent/skill) and their employer’s money.
The law of diminishing returns states that, since the pay is relatively fixed ($/hr worked), there MUST be a point where the person’s TIME becomes more valuable than the money they’re getting in return for the work they’re doing.
People will choose to move to new employment NOT just when a job opens up that uses more of their potential, but when the relative Opportunity Cost of new positions exceeds the OC of staying.
Wphew!
October 12, 2007 at 09:53
One of the problems I’m seeing in the U.S. as a result of sending jobs offshore is what you might call “under-employment”. The global economy is supposed to be good for everyone in the long run, but anyone who says that offshoring is good for American employment is crazy. I read an article recently (sorry, can’t find the link) that scared me silly. It showed that while the numbers show that jobs are still being created in the U.S., they are mostly services jobs like waiters and bartenders rather than high-paying white collar jobs. Students are leaving engineering programs in college because they believe there’s no future in the field for them — their jobs will just be sent to India or China or some other country. To me, that’s a severe form of “under-employment’ because bright youngsters don’t pursue a field they’re talented for because they don’t think there’s an economic future for them.
I don’t know what the solution is. We certainly can’t become protectionist and close the borders into and out of the country.