Jobs, Jobs, Jobs – Tips, Tips, Tips

 Chart from TheAtlantic.com, August 9^th based on BLS statistics

Aside from the escalating potential of an expansion of jobs for nuclear radiation decontamination experts, it is interesting to look at the hard numbers of where Trump-directed job growth has been most focused. What is clear is how underwhelming the increases are in terms of longer-term national economic values. Except for healthcare, which is beginning to implode as Donald Trump threatens to undermine and underfund the Affordable Care Act until he can force it to collapse, there is very little in the way of tech-development, infrastructure, education and research – the real high-level-job creation accelerators.

The big-deal Trump coal mining push – a small part of the above “Mining/Logging” category – is proving to be as underwhelming as economists predicted. As federal lands are opened up for exploitation, there is some minimal job growth in this rapidly fading sector, accompanied by some distressing side effects. For example, as a May 8, 2016 CBS 60 Minutes program points out, “Before 2009, there were, on average, two earthquakes a year in Oklahoma that were magnitude 3 or greater. [In 2015], there were 907. That's right, 907.” Wastewater, the result of expanding oil and gas extraction, has been pumped back into the ground resulting in this nasty earthquake phenomenon.

But the accelerating decline of retail jobs – from closing malls and growing online shopping – a sector that employs approximately 3.5 million Americans, is being rather completely ignored by the Trump administration, which continues to focus on the rapidly-contracting coal mining industry where there are fewer than a total 100,000 workers… and falling. Coal is most-definitely not the natural fuel resource of the future as global demand continues to plunge for this highly-polluting energy-generating alternative.

The slight increase in manufacturing jobs might seem like a good sign, but in a world where American manufacturing is defined by robotics, the winners in bringing “making things” back are the wealthiest Americans who own that automation that is replacing what used to be high-paying blue collar manufacturing jobs. Certainly not our labor force. Income inequality anyone?

But are we becoming a nation of cooks, waiters, and bussers? Not exactly the bastion of high pay, excepting super-star chefs and waiters in the most expensive eateries in the country. We seem obsessed with chefs and food, as any slide down a cable television channel menu will substantiate. Where’s the beef? On the table but definitely not in the wallet.

“Restaurant jobs are on fire in 2017, growing faster than health care, construction, or manufacturing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics calls this subsector ‘food services and drinking places,’ and the jobs are mostly at sit-down restaurants, which make up 50 percent of the category. Fast-food joints are the next-largest employer in the category, with 37 percent. Bars—wonderful, plentiful, but leanly staffed—account for just 3 percent. So, [we are] just going to keep saying ‘restaurants’ for short…

“How did this happen? As Justin Fox points out, the trend didn't appear overnight. For the past three decades, restaurants have steadily grown, as part of the most fundamental shift in American work—from making things to serving people. Between 1990 and 2008, 98 percent of new jobs came from so-called ‘nontradable’ industries that aren't sensitive to international trade, according to the economist Michael Spence.

“In 1990, manufacturing was almost three times larger than the food-service industry. But restaurants have gradually closed the gap. At current rates of growth, more people will work at restaurants than in manufacturing in 2020. This mirrors the shift in consumer spending. Restaurants’ share of America’s food budget has doubled from 25 percent in the 1950s to 50 percent today…

“The trend is speeding up, but it’s not clear that we should cheer it—or whether it’s sustainable. Jobs are jobs, but these ones don’t pay very well. The typical private-sector job pays about $22 an hour. The typical restaurant job pays about $12.50. That’s one reason why the Fight for 15 movement to raise the minimum wage has targeted the restaurant industry. What’s more, although it might feel like a golden age of restaurants in America, the truth is that the United States might have too many restaurants, particularly ‘family-casual’ chains like Applebee’s, which have struggled to keep up with rising labor costs [recently announcing a closing of approximately 135 venues].

“But the most important feature of the restaurant-jobs boom is not what it may say about the future, but rather the fact that it is happening in the first place. Trump and other politicians often say they want to help the common worker. But then they talk about the economy as if it were cryogenically frozen sometime around 1957. The U.S. still makes stuff, but mostly it serves stuff. To help American workers, it helps to begin with an honest accounting of what Americans actually do.” Derek Thompson writing for TheAtlantic.com, August 9^th. Want better jobs? Education, research and infrastructure… all areas where government expenditures continue the long-term austerity cutbacks that have been implemented by a conservative Congress and the majority of state legislatures… also controlled by conservatives.

I’m Peter Dekom, and mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be waiters.