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How To Title: Just because the Obama Administration hasn’t joined the 21st century doesn’t mean that you should follow suit. (The Obama Depression) So, this morning, I found INAFJ.org. If you’re wondering what INAFJ stands for, that’s pretty simple and straightforward: I Need A Frickin’ Job. These folks — Millennials and everybody else who is suffering chronic, long-term unemployment — are understandably annoyed. I know I’ve been hearing since before these kids were born that “to get a good job, you need a good education.” But they’re coming out of college (up to their eyebrows in debt) and they can’t find work. I’d be a little pissed, too. So, having expressed appropriate sympathy for their dilemma, there are a few things I feel compelled to say. First, there is no point in wailing about the myth that we sent manufacturing jobs overseas. The fact of the matter is that the manufacturing sector had been steadily shrinking as a proportion of our economy long before outsourcing became fashionable. What that means is that the United States is no longer a place where you can expect to get a good-paying job with union benefits on the assembly line, with no more schoolin’ than a high school diploma. You’ll still be able to find work as a high school graduate, but you probably shouldn’t look for anything better than retail service jobs at places like McDonalds and Walmart if you are unskilled labor. People with skills in the trades — electricians, plumbers, carpenters, nursing aides, beauticians, heavy equipment operators, etc. — are going to need to join people with education in whatever they have education and proceed into the 21st century. In other words, folks, a year and a half of waiting ought to tell you something. You’re going to have to stop waiting for somebody to create a job for you and go create one for yourself. And the movement needs to be about more than “nothing else you [politicians] do matters if we don’t have jobs.” It’s not really about the politicians. It’s about this simple fact of the modern economy: every time we have a recession, one of the things companies learn is how to get along with fewer full-time, permanent employees. That means, when the economy starts to pick up again, the companies find they don’t have to go back to hiring because they have already learned that they didn’t need all those employees anyway. One of the reasons why they don’t need to create all those jobs anyway is because they have found that they can get that work done by hiring independent contractors, freelancers, consultants, temporary workers (the “independent workforce”) to get those jobs done. If you want work (as opposed to “a job”), then you need to become part of said independent workforce. Just because the Obama Administration hasn’t joined the 21st century doesn’t mean that you should follow suit. You might wish those days of giant manufacturing companies creating gobs of jobs for everybody (a la 1955 or so) could come back once more but they won’t. So, if you want a freakin’ job, go make one for yourself. Then, if you’re still in the mood for a movement, then we can get together and yell about all the ways the government punishes you when you decide to make a living the entrepreneurial way. We can still make some noise.
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