UNEMPLOYED

"An Idle Mind is the Devil's Workshop"?

In this blog I will sometimes share stories Peter Drucker told his students when I attended his AEMBA program at Claremont in the 80's.  One story was of "dark factories" in Japan.  They were dark because robots, not people, were doing the work.  Another story was of the portion of the costs of large goods like automobiles were traceable to "benefits" for workers and the need for manufacturers to cut those costs.  A third story concerned the fact that actuarial findings shifted post WWII, showing that people were living longer and the usual methods for figuring pensions and other benefits, like health care no longer worked.  Bottom line:  problems lay ahead for defining "work".

He predicted that manufacturers would eventually turn to robots for all manufacturing; but not before all cheap labor on the planet has been found and exploited.  He was right on!  Witness the wholesale "off-shoring" of jobs over the past several decades.

This week's TIME magazine cites a "Jobless Generation" that is global in scope.  The much ballyhooed "education" remedy seems not be be THE answer, it's only a PART of the answer for this syndrome.

In a panel discussion of the Arab Spring among speakers from Tunis, Egypt, and Jordan recently, it was noted that the more education a young job seeker has, the HARDER it is for them to find a job, because the education model followed requires narrow specialization and many years of study.  Employers are seeking workers with a myriad of skills, knowledge,  and personal traits; AND they don't want to pay wages that were common even ten years ago.  Add to this a clear preference for women over men as new hires, and we have the toxic stew before us in this country.  The white Right and the Repoobs are going nuts pointing fingers at all sorts of "social ills" as the true causes for the economic woes we face.

When you think about it, jobs in the past were tied to physical labor; but not so much today.  They were tied to "careers" that are not the model for jobs today.  Jobs offered benefits like careers, health care, employer-paid defined benefit retirements -- none of which are common today.  These issues are bigger than governments or corporations to handle.

What if, what's really in demand is brain power (what Drucker called "knowledge workers")?  This means that titles, degrees, pedigrees, professions, no longer have the weight or value they held in the past.  "Brain Work" is much more elusive to conceptualize, compensate, legally protect, AND very hard to find.

These factors strike fear in the hearts of those who HAVE income-producing activities (previously known as JOBs); while we're focusing mostly on those searching for jobs??

Could it be that JOB has become a less reliable euphemism for INCOME?  We all may have to think for more carefully, and learn how to protect income-producing knowledge that we possess.

Copyright © 2012: Williams LLC
All Rights Reserved: Williams LLC