Supersized Job Opportunities?
Tyler Cowen, sticking up for economic turbulence in the WSJ:
In short, America is not becoming a nation of part-time Wal-Mart cashiers or burger flippers. In four of the five sectors studied by the authors--semiconductors, software, financial services, retail food and trucking--the growth rate for full-time jobs exceeds the growth rate for jobs in general. (Retail food is the exception.) Separate research, conducted by Ann Huff Stevens at the University of California, Davis, shows that the average tenure for employed U.S. male laborers has been broadly stable over the past 35 years.
In the aggregate, writes Cowen, "as workers lose jobs in one niche or sector, they gain in another, moving on to better jobs and higher pay." So quit yer bitchin', America. Things are getting better.
Perhaps, though, all the squabbles about the labor market are really just about quality of life for individual Average American Joes. But as Tyler Cowen has noted, "As Virginia Postrel has noted, Best Buy is full of people--few of them rich--buying flat-screen TVs. The obsession with measuring median wages misses a broader story about growing wealth, higher asset values, growing flexibility, growing buffers against risk, and growing opportunities for consumption."
He's reviewing the creatively titled Economic Turbulence: Is a Volitile Economy Good for America?.
Read the whole thing here.
