Comments on: Building Better Service Jobs

By: high-tech will not solve the employment crisis « partisan food, etc.

high-tech will not solve the employment crisis « partisan food, etc. — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:28:03 +0000

[...] it’s important to allow the high-tech economy to flourish, we must recognize that we need other, more labor-intensive industries as well if the country as a whole is going to [...]

By: Creative Class » Blog Archive » Service Wage Gap - Creative Class

Creative Class » Blog Archive » Service Wage Gap - Creative Class — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:43:32 +0000

[...] Suit and the Hawaiian Shirtby Richard FloridaWed Nov 18th 2009 at 10:42am ESTService Wage Gap Last week, I posted on the need to upgrade service class jobs. New research by the Martin Prosperity [...]

By: CR

CR — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:19:06 +0000

In order to take advantage of creative service jobs, wouldn’t people have to have extra income? Is this the problem now? People are cutting back on lawn service, hair dressers, vacations, patronizing the arts.

By: Kam

Kam — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:53:59 +0000

Buzzcut: as I read it, this project is trying to envision a free-market solution rather than encourage government intervention.

And those who think increasing service worker productivity is impossible or will increase unemployment need to go back and read some economic history! The numbers are clear – increasing productivity leads to long-term growth.

By: Buzzcut

Buzzcut — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:39:52 +0000

The idea that “The Free Market” is not up to creating jobs is ludicrous. It always has, what’s different now?

Well, what’s different now is socialism in America. But that’s hardly a problem with “The Free Market”, is it?

Sadly, instead of addressing entitlement spending, which is quickly bankrupting the country, the powers that be are busy expanding entitlements and bankrupting the country at an ever faster pace.

But a round of “shock therapy” and severe fiscal austerity would kick start “The Free Market”, generating jobs sometime thereafter, not unlike the boom in jobs after the brief but brutal ‘83 recession.

By: hayden fisher

hayden fisher — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:54:12 +0000

I disagree with the other comments and agree with Richard. There are many opportunities for entrepreneurship in service fields and the opportunity to deliver new services like personal-shoppers for example or event-planners in myriad creative ways. There’s an opportunity for greater art in the field of hairdressing for example, or master-playlisting. In short, there’s more opportunity to deliver not just the service that is not only utilitarian but downright artistic. The market will pay for these services, particularly as the economy continues to recover.

By: Mike L.

Mike L. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:05:16 +0000

A subsequent thought: research indicates that the Roman Empire did not pursue mechanization because then they would have millions of slaves with nothing to do. Is this where we are now?

By: Mike L.

Mike L. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:02:49 +0000

Yes, this does seem to be a Catch-22 situation. We can increase the value of service jobs by making the “servants” more efficient, more productive, better qualified. Each of these “servants” could be paid twice as much, and also do the work of two of our present “servants”. Ouch! That would make unemployment even worse ….

By: David

David — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:53:32 +0000

Improving “service” jobs seems to be a Utopian pipedream, because if I understand it correctly, you are talking about low-skill service jobs: janitors, grass cutters, etc. Adding innovation and creativity into that sector, while certainly laudable, would come at a tremendous cost. It is simple economics, if you increase the cost of labor, you will get less of it. So aside from turning the service sector into a large governmental employment department, practically speaking, how would this work?