Tradable v. non-tradable jobs
Nobel-prize winning economist Michael Spence makes this really clear: there are tradable jobs (making things that could be made somewhere else, like building cars, designing chairs and answering the phone) and non-tradable jobs (like mowing the lawn or cooking burgers). Is there any question that the first kind of job is worth keeping in our economy?Alas, Spence reports that from 1990 to 2008, the US economy added only 600,000 tradable jobs.
If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, they will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.
Do you see the disconnect here? Every year, we churn out millions of of workers who are trained to do 1925 labor.
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The post-industrial revolution is here. Do you care enough to teach your kids to take advantage of it?
2 comments
Sep 07, 2011
Alma liked this post.
Oct 25, 2011
Jared said...
Add to this disconnect that most schools seem to sell themselves on helping you learn transferable skill sets.
