From: Alejandro Valle Baeza (valle@SERVIDOR.UNAM.MX)
Date: Sun Mar 26 2006 - 12:41:27 EST
Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > > So the demand for jobs is considerably greater than the supply, and > the supply is not what the reigning theory says it is. Most of the > unfilled jobs pay low wages and require relatively little skill, often > less than the jobholder has. From the spring of 2003 to the spring of > 2004, for example, more than 55 percent of the hiring was at wages of > $13.25 an hour or less: hotel and restaurant workers, health care > employees, temporary replacements and the like. > That trend is likely to continue. Seven of the 10 occupations expected > to grow the fastest from 2002 through 2012, according to the Labor > Department, pay less than $13.25 an hour, on average: retail > salesclerks, customer service representatives, food service workers, > cashiers, janitors, nurse's aides and hospital orderlies. > The $13.25 threshold is important. More than 45 percent of the > nation's workers, whatever their skills, earned less than $13.25 an > hour in 2004, or $27,600 a year for a full-time worker. That is > roughly the income that a family of four must have in many parts of > the country to maintain a standard of living minimally above the > poverty level. Surely lack of skill and education does not hold down > the wages of nearly half the work force. > Something quite different seems to be true: the oversupply of skilled > workers is driving people into jobs beneath their skills and driving > down the pay of jobs equal to their skills. Both happened to the > aircraft mechanics laid off by United. > > * > Rakesh, thank you for this interesting article. It is in the same vein that Michael Yates book: Naming the System, Monthly Review Press, 2003. There is a section entitled: "The work we do: plenty of bad jobs in the rich nations." Muchos saludos Alejandro -- Posgrado Facultad de Economía Av. Universidad 3000 Circuito interior México 04510, DF México Tel. 55-56222148 fax 55-56222158 Página web: http://usuarios.lycos.es/vallebaeza
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