McJobs

 

 

"Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce. Special orders don't upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way!"

1970's Burger King Commercial

Oh the 80's! What a decade. It was the decade of Ronald Reagan, the rocket growth in the economy and the end of the cold war. It was also the coining of the term McJobs, a term according to the Oxford English Dictionary means "An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector." In addition it further states that the "lack of job security is common."

In the 1990's, when the Reagan revolution continued as the Clinton economy, jobs were being created like mad and many people were making lots and lots of money. However, in the midst of this drunken orgy of money and success, something sinister was lurking beneath the surface. It was something that was pointed out from time to time in the business section yet ignored by most. At a very slow yet steady rate, we were losing our manufacturing base through automation and outsourcing. This led to the term McJobs once again popularized this time in a 1991 book written by Douglas Coupland. The novel Generation X: Tales for an  Accelerated Culture, described McJobs as "a low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low benefit, no-future job in the service sector."

However, I don't think I ever heard McJobs more than in the 2000's when George W. Bush was president. The dot com bubble had burst and many of us found out the "new economy" of the internet was a bit more smoke and mirrors that we thought. As were flocked back to the safety of the brick and mortar companies that made us great, we found out that the manufacturing jobs were shrinking. People were taking jobs in the service sector that were lower paying with low or no benefits. The press hammered the President by only creating McJobs instead of "real" jobs. Still, in the 2000's there were well paying, well benefited jobs, just not as easy to find.

After the crash of 2008, hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared overnight. In 2012, many of those well paying jobs with good benefits still have not returned. What we are getting in return are true McJobs. As much as we heard the term McJobs in the 80's, 90's and especially the 2000's, today there is not a peep from the press.

For example, the now infamous September 2012 jobs report looked pretty good on the surface - and that is all most Americans see. However, to peel back the onion shows the following: 1) 2/3 of all jobs created were part time and 2) an additional 16,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. I have been saying this for quite a while now and am amazed the press does not report it - jobs lost and jobs created are as different as apples and oranges. Our economy cannot grow on McJobs - we need innovative, professional or skilled jobs with good pay and good benefits.

The irony is this - at this point in time, initially it will not matter who takes office in 2013 as this ship is going to take a long, long time to turn around. The slide in our manufacturing base started in the 70's and has continued ever since. To really get our economy going again, we need the next "big thing". To get the next "big thing", we need government to get its boot off the throat of the job creators and innovators. We need to fix our corporate and individual tax system as well as scrap our government education system and replace it with one that works. The old saying "if you find yourself in a ditch, the worst thing to do is keep driving" applies to our job market. What we have been doing is not working - in fact, it is getting worse.

McJobs will be with us always. We just need to have people in those jobs for which they were intended - high school kids working part time.