A Prettier Jobs Picture? [From NYT Magazine - Virginia Postrel says some jobs not being counted]

The NYT Sunday Magazine ^ | Feb 22, 2004 | Virginia Postrel

[summer]

ESSAY

A Prettier Jobs Picture?

By VIRGINIA POSTREL

Published: February 22, 2004

Productivity has risen rapidly over the past year, to the astonishment and delight of most economists. But a lot of people are still worried. What if increased productivity means that jobs disappear? Could the economy get too efficient? All over the world, even in China, factories are producing more stuff with fewer workers. On the Internet, visionaries fret over the rise of robots, while programmers denounce American companies for ''outsourcing'' their once-secure jobs to Indian engineers. Is this the recession -- or the recovery -- that does away with American jobs for good?

Many of the jobs that disappeared in the recent recession have indeed vanished forever, according to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Those workers will not be recalled as the economy improves. New jobs will have to be genuinely new, created in new or expanding enterprises.

But where will they come from? In a quickly evolving economy, in which increased productivity constantly makes some jobs redundant, we notice the job losses. It is much harder to spot where new jobs are emerging. Our mental categories tend to be behind the times. When we think of jobs, we see factories, secretarial pools, police officers, lawyers. We forget all about jobs we see every day.

The official job counters at the Bureau of Labor Statistics don't do much to overcome our blind spots. The bureau is good at counting people who work for large organizations in well-defined, long-established occupations. It is much less adept at counting employees in small businesses, simply because there are too many small enterprises to representatively sample them. The bureau's occupational survey, which might suggest which jobs are growing, doesn't count self-employed people or partners in unincorporated businesses at all. And many of today's growing industries, the ones adding jobs even amid the recession, are comprised largely of small companies and self-employed individuals. That is particularly true for aesthetic crafts, from graphic designers and cosmetic dentists to gardeners. These specialists' skills are in ever greater demand, yet they tend to work for themselves or in partnerships.

Consider the ubiquitous granite counter top. The slabs are imported, but the counter tops are made in the United States, and the shops that do the work are proliferating rapidly. ''It's an explosive trend,'' says Michael Reis, editor of the industry magazine Stone World. In 2002 alone, the magazine added 2,000 fabricators to its 20,000 subscribers. Reis estimates that there are 8,000 to 10,000 fabrication shops in the country.

Equipping a fabricating business can cost less than $30,000, thanks to relatively inexpensive machinery developed over the past decade. Sales are holding strong. Seventy-three percent of Stone World subscribers said their business was up in 2002, and nearly 60 percent of those reported an increase of more than 16 percent. The fabricators are small local shops, usually with fewer than 10 employees, which makes stone fabrication the sort of industry job prognostications tend to overlook. The Bureau of Labor Statistics survey doesn't have a separate category for this burgeoning construction craft. It is lumped under ''cutting and slicing machine setters, operators, and tenders,'' a production category dominated by people slicing paper in mills and printing plants. So losses in those fields mask the growth among stone crafters.

Or take Denise Revely, just the sort of worker that people who worry there will be no jobs in the future have in mind. She is in many ways a typical middle-class American, with skills, experience and some formal training but no college degree. Divorced with two grown daughters, she owns a house, pays her taxes, supports herself. Far from a tale of woe, Revely's resume is a good place to find the resilience of the American economy. She used to work in an electronics factory. Now she gives facials. She used to draw a paycheck from a day spa. Now she works for herself. Her business has been in the black ever since she opened last July. But as far as official statistics are concerned, she doesn't exist.

Neither do a lot of people in her rapidly growing field. In 2002, spas in the United States employed 176,000 people full time and another 106,000 part time, up from 50,000 full-time employees and 26,000 part-timers five years earlier, according to the International Spa Association. (These numbers do not include independent contractors, some of whom rent space inside spas.) Some of those spa employees show up in the bureau survey, which counts 15,580 skin-care specialists, 31,350 manicurists and 27,160 massage therapists. But a lot are still missing.

The American Massage Therapy Association counts more than 46,000 members -- nearly 20,000 more massage therapists than the bureau could locate for the profession as a whole. The association estimates that there are between 260,000 and 290,000 massage therapists in the United States, including students, compared with 120,000 to 160,000 in 1996. The bureau count thus overlooks some 200,000 massage jobs.

Similarly, the bureau has missed more than 300,000 manicurists. It puts the total at around 30,000, compared with the count of 372,000 -- up from 189,000 a decade ago -- by Nails magazine, using private survey and state licensing data. Even if not all licensed manicurists are practicing, the bureau number is off by an order of magnitude. There are 53,000 nail salons in the country, most of them with more than one manicurist. The industry supports two major trade magazines, each with about 60,000 subscribers.

Compared with stone crafters, gardeners or graphic designers, manicurists should be easy to track. ''This is not a gray market business,'' says Cyndy Drummey, the editor of Nails. ''It is licensed and regulated.'' Yet because this business is wildly decentralized and doesn't fit traditional categories of what constitutes a job -- most manicurists are independent contractors or shop owners -- it can add tens of thousands of jobs without catching the government's notice. And behind each manicurist are people making the tools of the trade.

It is tempting, of course, to treat these undercounts as trivial. After all, what do 200,000 massage therapists or 300,000 manicurists matter in a country of 290 million people? But this list of occupations is hardly comprehensive. In every booming job category I looked at, official surveys were missing thousands of jobs. As the economy evolves, however, this bias against small enterprises and self-employment becomes more and more significant. By missing so many new sources of productivity, the undercounts distort our already distorted view of economic value -- the view that treats traditional manufacturing and management jobs as more legitimate, even more real, than craft professions or personal-service businesses. But the truth is, value can come as much from intangible pleasures as it can from tangible goods.

Virginia Postrel is the author of ''The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness'' (HarperCollins).

[summer]

After all, what do 200,000 massage therapists or 300,000 manicurists matter in a country of 290 million people? But this list of occupations is hardly comprehensive. In every booming job category I looked at, official surveys were missing thousands of jobs.

I can't help but think we should be spending more time, earlier on, in teaching today's youth how to start their own small businesses. Those business skills, along with a marketable idea/service/product, and hard work, might actually be the best way to go in the future for many of today's American kids.

Come to think of it -- none of my relatives who own small business have had any probelm making it in today's economy. The ones I know who are suffering were all employed by large corporations.

[summer]

probelm = problem

[marktwain]

I know several people who have created their own jobs and are self supporting.

Sometimes I think that the people who are always whining about the demise of America are simply insisting that someone else be responsible for them.

Someone else must make a "job" for me provide health care "for me" and figure out a way that I with little or no effort, can be productive.

Then it is their responsibility to save "my" job, even at the cost of their hard earned fortune.

[Paradox]

My wife left the official payrolls after some 20 years of working for others. She has now started her own profitable and fairly successful business. She is very conservative, and has had her run of bad luck, paycheck to paycheck months (before we got married). With no college education, she is a shining example, I think, of the new labor force. She can't STAND to hear people complain about the economy and lack of jobs..

[Mygirlsmom]

I can't help but think we should be spending more time, earlier on, in teaching today's youth how to start their own small businesses

Ding ding ding! You just said the secret "woids"!

[JLS]

Ban those steam powered looms. How will anyone in the 20th Century make a live. Plus we need Congress to ban the sun so we can sell more candles.

[summer]

Well, on one hand I am actually somewhat distressed in saying that, because I think people should have a choice where they want to work - if you really want to work for a big accounting company instead of being out on your own, you should be able to. But I guess that's in an ideal world. And now, with all the fraud that goes on in these large corporations, and the outsourcing and layoffs, I think a person who may want to be an accountant, for example, would be smarter from the get go to do it on their own and get their own clients. However, starting out on one's own is a lot hard in many ways, and certainly not what many young people expect to have to do. Yet - I look around, and the ones on their own are the ones who have jobs and an income. The ones who relied on big business are wishing they hadn't.

[Ciexyz]

Why oh why are the Republicans silent about the job situation? All we read is Democratic sniping and the techies screaming. Get with it Republican Party, or you're gonna lose in Nov!

[WOSG]

You are right.

"The establishment" is not interested in teaching kids to be entrepreneurs. They want the schools to spit out employees ...

but in our dynamic economy, it is far better to equip them with the skills of self-employment, which they can use for life as a fallback.

"Come to think of it -- none of my relatives who own small business have had any probelm making it in today's economy. The ones I know who are suffering were all employed by large corporations."

Exactly so.

[reformedliberal]

Over the past 20 years, I have had a variety of apprentices in my hand manufacturing business. At least 2 have gone on to have their own businesses in widely different fields: one has gone from a college chemistry degree to receptionist to assistant in a brokerage in NYC to running her own promotions business w/a partner. Another has done a variety of things for herself from field production horticulture to getting her RN to running a stained glass studio. These women are both around 35 and very capable. A young man who worked for me works today in construction/concrete, is paying off a modest farming operation and is 28, w/a homeschooled high school education. These are flexible young people who aren't afraid of hard work and who have learned how to spot serial niches.

Some have been absolute duds, of course, but I am proud of the ones who just needed to work in a sole proprietorship to figure out the possibilities for themselves.

2 of the above began some sort of actual work around age 12 or so: mother's helper or yard work. They were good workers and were moved up as they proved themselves. All stayed on for 6 or so years.

You can't teach this is today's schools, because there is too much capitalism, individuality, competition and risk involved. IMO, the best thing you can do for a kid is expose them to part time work for small entrepreneurs or let them grow up in one. My son worked his way thru college (chemistry) making and selling earrings and lampwork beads.He now is a contract programmer who also rehabs houses. In my case, I worked for a jewelry engraver starting at 15. 15 years later, my husband and I were manufacturing and marketing a jewelry line in the US and the Caribbean. Today, I have a wholesale product line, do some medical massage and my husband is a succesful, full-time medical massage therapist. He is also a top-notch graphic designer and technical draftsman, but right now, he considers those Plan B skills.

This article is right on. And remember that these professions are totally dependant on other people having disposable discretionary income, because none of us work cheap. If America was unemployed, we would feel the trickle-down first.

[summer]

LOL...one thing I've noticed: if you happen to live in a wealthy area, and your small business caters to the rich (and I am thinking of one relative in particular I have whose clients are all wealthy), you will do OK no matter what happens in the economy. As the above article says, people are still making granite countertops, getting their massages and manicures, and, they buy a whole lot of other things, too, even when stock prices drop and everyone else is complainging. Fresh flowers, chocolates, health food, designer home theaters, etc. More and more all the time.

[summer]

complainging = complaining

[Drango]

But a lot of people are still worried. What if increased productivity means that jobs disappear? Could the economy get too efficient?

Huh? Only Luddites and authors worry about this. More proof that the NY Times has been outsourced to Pravda.

[reformedliberal]

You are being funny, but let me tell you that production hand weavers and production candle makers have solid, thriving wholesale businesses.

Way back in the 80s, some trend predictors came up w/the buzz phrase: high tech/high touch. This meant that even in a technological, plastic, disposable consumer society, there would always be a market for the items can be only be made by a human hand. It can also mean that people today crave human touch, so the *aesthetic* professions are thriving.

[Ciexyz]

My uncle and aunt operated a knife sharpening business for many years. My uncle inherited it from his Dad, it was the family business. They sold it for a good profit when none of the kids wanted to go into it. The new buyer kept the name of the business, because it was known and respected by businesses that used their services. When you build up a successful small business, you build up a good name.

[summer]

I too have relatives who built up a solid small business and did well when they sold it - and the new owners lept my relatives' name on the business because it had a good reputation and that good name, of course, is valuable in business.

[summer]

I too have relatives who built up a solid small business and did well when they sold it - and the new owners kept my relatives' name on the business because it had a good reputation and that good name, of course, is valuable in business.

[summer]

so the *aesthetic* professions are thriving

This writer, Virginia Postrel, has written several interesting articles in the NYT about this trend, though I notice her articles are sometimes not published in the business section but in the "Style" section of the newspaper. Her book is also very much in tune with your theory.

[summer]

If America was unemployed, we would feel the trickle-down first.

I agree with much of what you said in your thoughtful post #10, especially the above line. I notice when I read articles about people who are out of work and unemployed, especially in the NYT, the story line usually goes like this: "X worked for Large Company and had a Big Title and a Six FIgure Salary, and got laid off - and, realized he had no other skills and is now working for The Gap as a salesman." Well, gosh, I always think - how the h*ll did that person ever come to make a 6-figure salary in the first place if he can't figure out anything else to do?

[summer]

in our dynamic economy, it is far better to equip them with the skills of self-employment, which they can use for life as a fallback.

Yes, I agree, And, I can tell you firsthand, because I teach in the schools after having had a career outside of education - being in business for yourself is not something schools are even equipped to teach, since most people in education have been in education their entire lives.