January 09, 2011
Most of the thousands of economists gathered this weekend at the annual convention of the American Economics Association in Denver would probably agree with MIT economist David Autor, that the big problem facing the U.S. labor market is that our workforce is not being adequately educated. Autor claims that most of the new jobs that are being created are at the top and the bottom of the skills level. His recipe is to have more people go to college and earn advance degrees.
By contrast, the NYT devoted a lengthy article to tell readers about the dismal job market facing young lawyers. It reports that many recent graduates of law schools that are below the top tier can only find very low paying legal jobs, if they find any within the professional at all.
It is worth noting that if Autor is right, then the NYT has seriously misrepresented the state of the legal market. Alternatively, the economy could simply be suffering from a situation in which there are too few jobs in total. This would mean that the fundamental problem is not the skills of the workforce but rather the skills of the people designing economic policy.
Comments