Before, during and after the Great Recession, demand for one sort of worker has been persistently stronger: jobs that involve assisting or caring for other people—from fast-food workers to home-health aides to nail polishers. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a fascinating article entitled “Why Hairdressers Are Secure: Their Jobs Can’t Be Exported” The title alone provides the biggest explanation as to why your favorite hairdresser is sitting pretty, but journalists Neil Shah and David Wessel go even deeper than this. Economists are noticing a couple of longer-term trends in particular. When looking at the 3 compontents of our workforce — high, medium, and lower-skill workers — the demand for the most educated (i.e. engineers, etc.) has been quite stable. But globalization and technology has been eroding demand for generic middle-skill, middle-wage jobs (factory floor jobs are all moving overseas, and office jobs that used to be done by humans are quickly being taken over by computers). As for the hairdresser, for example, the forecast is much, much, much brighter. You can read the entire article by visiting WallStreetJournal.com.
