The Good Jobs Strategy

But it doesn't have to...

Digby Jones

Jobs in the United States that once featured good pay and decent benefits in manufacturing, services, and information technology have gone overseas at full-throttle pace in the past several decades. This has decimated America’s middle class, and in it’s wake has set off a chain reaction of problems for the country as a whole.

Restaurants, Car Dealerships, Hotels, and a host of other businesses that prominently dot the urban landscape of the U.S.A. have understandably suffered as a result of a hollowed-out middle class which is now relegated to low (or no) wages.

Zeynep Ton, an M.I.T. Sloan School of Management Professor, uses this recent TED event in Massachusetts to draw on a decade of research that challenges whether there really is a trade-off between offering low prices and paying low wages in this fairly new “bad job” dominated economy.

Just what are bad jobs? They are most often service-sector jobs which pay poverty-level wages, have chaotic schedules, offer the false hope of career advancement, have poorly designed work, and offer no sense of purpose or self-satisfaction when the day is done.

Take for example a retail employee which Zeynep once interviewed, who said that “We are throwaways who are a dime a dozen… just human robots, really”.

Defenders of this system have argued that American corporations, to stay competitive internationally, must cut wages and benefits to a minimum and essentially squeeze as much productive value as possible out of each worker.

However, Zeynep argues that good jobs and happy, well-compensated employees are in fact a key element of a virtuous cycle for companies, which ultimately results in low prices and increased profitability. She focuses on retailing, citing some popular chains such as Costco and Trader Joe’s. Both of those companies offer good pay and benefits to their full-time employees, all while offering prices which closely compare to some of their “bad job” competition such as Sam’s Club.

This article first appeared on Ingenious Press. Follow us on our Facebook and Twitter Pages for weekly updates on independent news and other alternative media.

Learn more about Zeynep Ton at www.zeynepton.com

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Be the Change! Share this using the tools below.

15 Signs That The Quality Of Jobs In America Is Going Downhill Really Fast

Michael Snyder

Trying to find a job in America today can be an incredibly frustrating experience.  Most of the jobs that are available seem to pay very little, and there is intense competition for just about any job that is open.  But it wasn't always like this. When I was in high school, I was immediately hired when I applied for a job at McDonald's because they were so desperate for workers that they would hire just about anyone that could flip a burger.  But in this economic environment, a single nationwide hiring event conducted by McDonald's resulted in a million job applications, and only a small percentage of those applicants were actually hired.

Our economy simply does not produce enough jobs for everyone anymore, and the percentage of "good jobs" continues to decline.  That means that it is getting really hard to find a job that will enable you to support a family, and a lot of people end up doing jobs that they are massively overqualified for.  But when times are tough, people are going to do what they have to do in order to survive.

One thing that we have seen in recent years is an explosion in the number of "temp workers" in America.

No Hope On The Jobs Front

Dees Illustration

Paul Craig Roberts

After reading my account of today’s payroll jobs report, please proceed to today’s main article, “Lawlessness Is The New Normal.”

Do you remember the promise of the New Economy that was going to replace the lost “dirty fingernail” manufacturing jobs with innovative highly paid New Economy jobs? Well, the promise was just another deception from the elites who have stolen Americans’ future.

For the umpteenth consecutive month and year, the June BLS payroll jobs report (released on July 5) shows that the US economy has created no such jobs. The same old tired categories account for the same old lowly paid new domestic service jobs.

Of the 195,000 new private sector jobs alleged to have been created, 75,000 or 38% are accounted for by the category “leisure and hospitality.” Within this category there were 52,000 new waitresses and bartenders, and 19,000 jobs in “amusements gambling, and recreation.”

The Fed's New Bubble Masquerading as a Jobs Program

Dees Illustration

Robert Reich
Huffington Post

The latest jobs bill coming out of Washington isn't really a bill at all. It's the Fed's attempt to keep long-term interest rates low by pumping even more money into the economy ("quantitative easing" in Fed-speak).

The idea is to buy up lots of Treasury bills and other long-term debt to reduce long-term interest rates. It's assumed that low long-term rates will push more businesses to expand capacity and hire workers; push the dollar downward and make American exports more competitive and therefore generate more jobs; and allow more Americans to refinance their homes at low rates, thereby giving them more cash to spend and thereby stimulate more jobs.

Problem is, it won't work. Businesses won't expand capacity and jobs because there aren't enough consumers to buy additional goods and services.

The dollar's drop won't spur more exports. It will fuel more competitive devaluations by other nations determined not to lose export shares to the US and thereby drive up their own unemployment.

Read Full Article

RELATED ARTICLE:
The After-the-Fed Solutions Debate Begins: Greenbackers Vs. Goldbugs

Fresh food that lasts from eFoods Direct (Ad)

Live Superfoods It is time to Wake Up! You too, can join the "Global Political Awakening"!

Print this page