food services

The employment news on Friday was heartening and assorted media outlets are heralding the beginning of the end for the recession. The New York Times on its front cover this morning made the first stab at a hagiography of the Great Recession, lauding the Washington brains that have pulled our country back from the brink following the Lehman bankruptcy. (Their redemption is made even more dramatic by their earlier mistakes — a Paul-on-the-road-to-Damascus conversion that will ensure the future of capitalism, in the Time’s emerging lore.)

Whatever the perils of daily journalism, the NY Times has carved out a leading niche for itself with information-packed graphics that tell stories with breadth and ingenuity.

A package of graphs and charts neatly summarized the labor picture in July: a 9-month tide of increasingly rapid job cuts ebbed in July. I was struck by the relative difference in unemployment level by education: the rate for people who have not completed high school was nearly four times higher than people with a bachelor’s degree or higher. This was the biggest demographic gap in employment cited among the assorted statistics on the page.

Working through the paper, I came to Floyd Norris’ Saturday column, where he digs into the numbers around a specific topic or issue.

Norris took a look at the 10-year trend in employment, observing that from 1999 to 2009 only 121,000 net jobs have been created in the private sector. Over the decade, the manufacturing sector experienced a 3.7% decline in jobs. Retail trade was down slightly. The highest areas of growth were in management & technical consulting, computer systems design, health care and food services & drinking places.

The numbers paint a picture of a changing economy, with increases in skilled work. The impact of the change was obscured somewhat during the housing bubble because of the increase in construction opportunities. But the profile of industry is in the midst of a dynamic change.

This change has occurred during the slowest period of net growth in private sector employment during the 1950′s. The implication is that as we experience this change in economic profile, competition for jobs increases as the number of jobs per employable person declines.

A clear conclusion? Education in general, and the development of specialized skills in specific, increase the potential for employment.

So, how have we done in terms of creating opportunities for education in order to transition the work force and improve our ability to drive growth in new and emerging professional sectors?

Here’s a summary of education attainment from the National Center for Education Statistics

Between 1971 and 2000, the percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds who had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 17 to 29 percent; however, the rate in 2008, at 31 percent, showed no measurable difference from the rate in 2000. [Emphasis added] Between 1971 and 2008, the percentage who had attained a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 19 to 37 percent for Whites, from 7 to 20 percent for Blacks, and from 5 to 12 percent for Hispanics. Between 1990 and 2008, the percentage of Asians/Pacific Islanders who had attained a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 42 to 58 percent, although most of this increase (11 percentage points) occurred between 1995 and 2000. Between 2000 and 2008, there was no measurable difference in the percentage of Asians/Pacific Islanders who had attained a bachelor’s degree or higher. Between 1971 and 2008, the gap favoring Whites over Blacks widened from 12 to 17 percentage points, and the gap favoring Whites over Hispanics widened from 14 to 25 percentage points. Between 1990 and 2008, the gap favoring Asians/Pacific Islanders over Whites widened from 16 to 21 percentage points.

The United States made a concerted effort to drive educational attainment after World War II, and the introduction of social programs during the 1960′s and 1970′s raised the level of education across the population. One can argue that the commitment to education investment helped to drive the productivity explosion that powered our economy during the 1980′s and 1990′s.

We have stagnated since. Productivity is relatively flat, even as the economy has experienced artificial growth. And educational attainment has stagnated as well.

This presents a challenging problem for our society as a whole, and the Obama administration in particular. In order to improve employment, we need to re-charge the investment in education with a clear focus on giving individuals — of all races — access to the specialized skills that will allow them to participate in innovation in developing industries. This investment needs to be made during a period of low growth, which will require government subsidy.

Experts in education and social development point to three or four key factors for childhood success: nutrition, social stability and access to education.

Looking at the focus of our government initiatives, one’s only left to wonder whether by tilting at the big windmills of Health and Credit and Industry, we’re missing the opportunity to build the kind of grassroots successes that can transform our country.

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