 |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
photo: GETTY IMAGES (UNEMPLOYED WORKERS)
|
Our blue-Collar depression
By JANICE NITTOLI Today’s job losses are concentrated among workers under 30 who are less well-educated, with those in blue-collar industries suffering the most. Employment in construction, maintenance and repair, machine-operation and transportation (think truck and bus drivers) has shrunk 18% since the recession’s start. To put this number into context, consider this: During the Great Depression of 1929-33, total employment is estimated to have fallen by only slightly more than that 18%. In short, the current Great Recession for younger blue-collar workers feels more like a depression—with no end in sight.
Until the economy recovers, what’s needed are employment solutions designed for a new set of problems—more complex and more difficult than those presented by the milder recessions of the recent past. The problem is that long-term unemployment not only suppresses earnings and productivity, but also destroys marriages, distorts families and devastates communities. Work is not something we do simply to earn money; it is part of how we form our identity and how we join society. It shapes our self-esteem, and when it goes missing, it contributes to depression, disengagement and dysfunction. What to do? Part of the answer is to ease the shocks that accompany the long, slow transition from unemployment to employment in a deep recession. Unemployment insurance and gap-filling programs of short-term compensation for workers who share jobs are important buffers, but they are only part of the solution. Many of these left-behind workers are younger, lack a post-secondary degree and possess iffy credentials compared with their more-experienced relatives—who are also now looking for work. If we don’t want to write off a generation that could have another 30 to 40 years of potential working life ahead of it, we need to rethink work, its hours and activities. The solution includes a mix of new and old ways to create work—through public subsidies of private jobs in growth sectors such as small business, more traditional public works such as infrastructure, and supplemental efforts to make alternative jobs out of current societal needs, including elder care and neighborhood cleanup. Experience shows that this approach works. Thirty-seven states already use federal matching funds to provide subsidized employment in the private and public sectors that help 240,000 people participate in the labor market, get experience and connect with employers—opening doors otherwise closed to them. For young people, valuable work (and life) experience can come from public summer-job programs and through internships in private companies and nonprofits. Further, with government and business pulling in the same direction, we can take a range of activities and turn them into work. Anyone who struggles to care for an elderly relative, worries about how a neglected lot affects home values and personal safety, or bends a tire rim in a pothole knows there’s much that can be done to improve our well-being. These needs can also be turned into jobs. With such approaches, otherwise idle Americans can become savers, consumers, neighbors and confident, contributing family members. These ideas may be politically unpopular at present, but they may become less so as the pain lasts longer, runs deeper and affects more Americans. Ms. Nittoli is associate vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation.What’s your opinion? Write to letters.classroom@wsj.com.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
