Why the Job Market Will Continue Shrinking

by Charles Hugh Smith, Wealth Wire:
The fundamental dynamic of America’s job market is simple: we need relatively few workers to provide the absolute essentials of life even as the cost-basis of the economy inexorably rises. In other words, there are fewer jobs even as the costs of maintaining a “middle class” life rise.
Let’s start by observing how all the financial data in the world does not necessarily describe the primary dynamics of an economy. There are a number of factors that cause this disconnect between the primary forces at work beneath the surface and the data.
One is that economists tend to focus on situations with abundant, easy-to-interpret data. If you’re only looking for roses, then you ignore everything that isn’t a rose. So economists seek dynamics that can be easily explained by available data, and financial factors that they are paid to examine. Everything else is ignored, especially if the act of examining it casts a skeptical light on a self-serving Status Quo.
One key reality that is rarely if ever discussed is that the number of workers needed to provide the bare essentials of life to the 313 million residents of America is modest.
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