The Price of Civilization by Jeffrey D. Sachs

Author:Jeffrey D. Sachs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780679605027
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-10-04T10:00:00+00:00

The Importance of Meaningful Work

Nearly every study of happiness underscores the importance of meaningful work to personal well-being. Unemployment is the single largest factor in the public’s unhappiness and political restiveness. Yet America’s work environment has deteriorated notably over the past quarter century. Unemployment is high and stagnant; fear of job security is pervasive; corporate malfeasance is shockingly high; and the mismatch of jobs and skills is becoming a national crisis and scandal. We need a new mindfulness of work to recover our bearings.

There are vast improvements possible in the quality of working life for average workers. American workers have little job security, no guaranteed vacation time, little flexibility regarding working hours, meager union protection, and no representation on the corporate boards regarding compensation, employment, work sharing, training, and other issues. Libertarians claim that any further worker representation in company decision making would destroy U.S. competitiveness. Yet throughout northern Europe, workers participate in corporate deliberations and often decision making, without a loss of productivity and with more creative solutions on job flexibility and vacation time.

Many European governments have also pioneered and demonstrated the efficacy of “active labor market policies,” which use government funding to match workers to jobs and to improve targeted job training for skills that are in demand. The U.S. labor market is increasingly mismatched. High-skilled workers find good jobs, while poorly skilled workers settle for poverty-level pay or fall out of the labor force altogether. The unemployment rate of college graduates is around 4 percent, but for workers with a high school education or less, the rate is three times that.6 Yet the United States is pushing more and more poorly trained young workers into the labor market and doing little to help them stay in school.

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