The Decline of Work – WSJ

Work has become a dirty word. Cyber bohemians just want to dream and stream. And now this:

The New York Times

ran an opinion piece titled “How to Fight Back Against the Inhumanity of Modern Work.” What? Paper cuts are a bigger risk these days than losing an arm in a loom. Still, I thought the piece would be about dirty jobs—the hardships of coal miners, the plight of burnt-out nurses or the inhumanity of waking up at 5 a.m. to milk cows. Nope. The author complained about digital monitoring—coders, cashiers and others being tracked by evil bosses, who are measuring productivity. Gasp! Has society become that spoiled? Apparently so. The prevailing thinking is we’re all

Lucy Ricardo

and

Ethel Mertz

wrapping chocolates on a conveyor belt.

Only 8.4% of U.S. nonfarm payroll positions are in manufacturing. Many of those jobs were exported long ago to cheaper labor markets such as China. Even if some of those jobs return to the U.S., many workers aren’t qualified.

Mike Rowe

of “Dirty Jobs” fame said, “We are lending money we don’t have to kids who can’t pay it back to train them for jobs that no longer exist.” So they are underemployed. Or quit. Or seek purpose and balance.

We rightly encourage STEM jobs—science, technology, engineering and math. I recently learned of HEAL jobs. Dog walkers? No, jobs in health, education, administration and literacy. These are the growing jobs of a vibrant service economy.

It isn’t news that the U.S. is a service economy, yet too often the focus is on labor vs. capital, as if we still make widgets. Unions want to arm-wrestle value from capital and force higher wage payouts than is economically sound. This blatantly disregards human capital—what workers learn on the job is theirs to keep. We increase productivity and wealth by having workers figure out how to do…