From LARB, Darryl Holter reviews The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America by Rick Wartzman. It’s time to explode the myth of “McJobs”. The future of work is the low-wage health care job: The poor taking care of the poor are driving the new economy. The men who take “women’s” jobs: As employment options shrink in parts of the Midwest, many men who once worked in manufacturing are finding new careers in health care. Why don’t all jobs matter? Paul Krugman on economic pain, beyond coal and manufacturing. Here’s the real Rust Belt jobs problem — and it’s not offshoring or automation.
How educated and culturally savvy young people are transforming traditionally low-status manual labor jobs into elite taste-making occupations. The “new economy” and the rise of the artisan career: William Skidelsky reviews Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy by Richard E Ocejo; Down and Out in the New Economy: How People Find (Or Don’t Find) Work Today by Ilana Gershon; and The Amateur: The Pleasure of Doing What You Love by Andy Merrifield.
