Piaţa te vrea prost!

Ne dăm de ceasul morţii degeaba, prieteni, crezând că mai multă educaţie înseamnă automat locuri de muncă mai bine plătite, şi perspectiva unei vieţi mai bune. Nu, absolut greşit! Soluţia e alta: ăia de au bani să-şi plătească mai bine servitorii, fie că e vorba de frizeri, grădinari, vânzători, măturători, pe ăia de-i şterg la cur pe bătrâni în azile, sau de muci pe kinderi la grădiniţă. Pentru că cam astea vor fi  joburile cele mai des întâlnite de acum pe piaţa muncii. Cele de calitate vor fi tot mai puţine, şi rezervate unor elite care sunt deja organizate în structuri închise.

"America and other advanced nations are now in the early throes of a new jobs transformation, which requires an equally imaginative response. It creates two new distinct categories of jobs. The first includes millions of the best jobs America has ever seen: high-pay, high-skill jobs in professional and creative fields. The second, including such routine service work as care assistants and home health aids, retail sales clerks and food preparers, is less good. Pay for such jobs is roughly half that of manufacturing jobs. The result is as simple as it is tragic: a bifurcation of the job market and an increasingly unequal and polarised society.

Once we see this it becomes clear that neither a counter-cyclical approach to job creation, nor ideas of educating more people for higher-paying jobs, will work. The numbers don’t add up: some 45 per cent of the workforce are already toiling in low-wage service jobs that will remain so even when growth returns. These are also the fastest-growing jobs: the US will add a projected 7m more in the coming decade.

A successful jobs strategy must, therefore, focus on upgrading this entire job category. Thankfully much service work is not vulnerable to offshoring or automation: we need humans to care for our children and ageing parents, to cut our hair and steam our lattes. But we also need to see service work as a potential source of future profit and innovation. Some private sector organisations, such as the online retailer Zappos, show how this might be done, with their focus on helping service workers move through an internal career ladder from entry ranks to managers of divisions. These companies view workers as a potential source of innovation, and build a culture and community that delivers better services to customers. Others need to learn from them.

Instead of just focusing on training to push some into higher paid work, Mr Obama should make upgrading service jobs the next step in repairing America’s broken job machine. A national initiative, bringing together “service innovators” – such as Zappos, Starbucks or outdoor clothing retailer REI – would be a good start. Most services companies are small, however, so help is also needed to partner such organisations with universities, community colleges and industry groups. The administration should also consider using tax incentives to nudge such companies to upgrade service jobs.

Some of this may mean all of us paying a little more to those who cut our hair and sell us our clothes. But this is exactly what we did a half century ago to spur recovery by paying more to the workers who make our cars and appliances and build our homes. But these costs are modest, and unlikely to derail any recovery. The payoffs, both in terms of productivity gains and an upgraded American jobs machines in which all workers are given a fair chance, would surely be worth it."

Vedeţi ce simplu e? Daţi-le un bacşiş mai mare, şi am rezolvat problema! Şi nici nu mai cheltuim bani cu educaţia! Acu' îl înţelegeţi pe băsescu, şi înţelegeţi de ce se închid şcoli şi sunt daţi profesorii afară? E genial, e deschizător de drumuri, e protocronist!  Ura şi la gară! Şi nu uitaţi bacşişul! Fiţi generoşi!