Many of the jobs lost during the recession are not coming back.
Period.
For the last two years, the weak economy has provided an opportunity for employers to do what they would have done anyway: dismiss millions of people — like file clerks, ticket agents and autoworkers — who were displaced by technological advances and international trade.
On the one hand, having a flexible, technology-based practice that has no need for administrative employees is the best thing I ever did. I doubt that the cost of a worthwhile assistant, all the necessary equipment and space would actually net me any money. On the other hand: what on earth do we do with these people? These aren’t welfare queens. These are people that have worked most of their lives, mostly in jobs that were not foreseeably going to be eliminated any time soon. This seems to happen with great frequency in our globalized economy.
My guess is that we need—more than expanded unemployment or other safety net measures—a massive expansion of community colleges with programs focusing on career switches for adults instead of mostly two-year degrees for teenagers. Yet community colleges are being slaughtered in California lately.