The Obama administration announced its upcoming summit on jobs yesterday. The economic crisis has eliminated seven million jobs in the U.S. and 400,000 in Canada. ”This is the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous business cycle,” writes Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News and World Report, in an op-ed ominously titled: “The Free Market Is Not Up to the Job of Creating Work.”
An enormous potential source of jobs is right in front of our noses – the service sector. Service jobs employ 56 million people, 45 percent of workforce in the United States and seven million workers, 46 percent of Canada’s workforce. Millions more will be added as we move from crisis to recovery.
However, low-paying service class jobs seem to be a poor substitute for the long-run, stable, high-wage jobs that are being lost in manufacturing. But service jobs offer lots of potential for innovation, entrepreneurship, and the upgrading of employment opportunities. The Strength in Services Summit will explore what is and can be done to transform service jobs into more innovative, higher-paying, and better work. Click here for more. And contribute to the ongoing dialogue on this critical issue.