« Knowledge Ecology Studies | Main | What you read may be determined in Seattle »
March 7, 2008
Those job numbers
The February employment numbers came out this morning -- and the decline in payrolls immediately had everyone crying recession (see for example Economics Blog : Economists React: Payrolls at 'Recessionary Levels').
The numbers certainly were not good. But I have a different immediate reaction: how little our data tells us about what is really happening in the labor market.
It speaks to the paucity of our language and conceptual framework. Right now, we look at the economy as split between manufacturing and services (with agriculture, mining and construction thrown in).
Our economic data is broken up by those industry categories. But the difference between the celebrity chef and the minimum wage fast food workers? Between the person who designs a bridge and the person who builds it? Composing a symphony and playing a symphony? Engineering a car and building a car?
According to our conceptual framework, one of those persons is in manufacturing, one in construction and six in services. To break it down further, two are in “food services”, two are in “performing arts” and two are likely categorized in “engineering services”.
None of those categorizations tell you anything about what the key difference might be. One difference is that the former in each pairing works more with their brains (intangibles) and the latter more with their muscles (tangibles). Sure, there is brain work in playing a symphony – but it is the tangible counterpart to the intangible composition process.
Each of the halves of those parings goes about their work in very different ways, uses different tools and relies on different skills. Yet our current economic data has no way of telling them apart.
Is it It is past time we updated our statistics and our concepts for the I-Cubed Economy.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at March 7, 2008 1:46 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.athenaalliance.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1831