Jobs And Skills And Zombies
By PAUL KRUGMAN

A few months ago, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and Marlene Seltzer, the chief executive of Jobs for the Future, published an article in Politico titled “Closing the Skills Gap.” They began portentously: “Today, nearly 11 million Americans are unemployed. Yet, at the same time, 4 million jobs sit unfilled” — supposedly demonstrating “the gulf between the skills job seekers currently have and the skills employers need.”

Actually, in an ever-changing economy there are always some positions unfilled even while some workers are unemployed, and the current ratio of vacancies to unemployed workers is far below normal. Meanwhile, multiple careful studies have found no support for claims that inadequate worker skills explain high unemployment.

But the belief that America suffers from a severe “skills gap” is one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it’s true. It’s a prime example of a zombie idea — an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die.

And it does a lot of harm. Before we get there, however, what do we actually know about skills and jobs?

Yes, workers with a lot of formal education have lower unemployment than those with less, but that’s always true, in good times and bad. The crucial point is that unemployment remains much higher among workers at all education levels than it was before the financial crisis. The same is true across occupations: workers in every major category are doing worse than they were in 2007.

Some employers do complain that they’re finding it hard to find workers with the skills they need. But show us the money: If employers are really crying out for certain skills, they should be willing to offer higher wages to attract workers with those skills. In reality, however, it’s very hard to find groups of workers getting big wage increases, and the cases you can find don’t fit the conventional wisdom at all. It’s good, for example, that workers who know how to operate a sewing machine are seeing significant raises in wages, but I very much doubt that these are the skills people who make a lot of noise about the alleged gap have in mind.

And it’s not just the evidence on unemployment and wages that refutes the skills-gap story. Careful surveys of employers — like those recently conducted by researchers at both M.I.T. and the Boston Consulting Group — similarly find, as the consulting group declared, that “worries of a skills gap crisis are overblown.”

The one piece of evidence you might cite in favor of the skills-gap story is the sharp rise in long-term unemployment, which could be evidence that many workers don’t have what employers want. But it isn’t. At this point, we know a lot about the long-term unemployed, and they’re pretty much indistinguishable in skills from laid-off workers who quickly find new jobs. So what’s their problem? It’s the very fact of being out of work, which makes employers unwilling even to look at their qualifications.

So how does the myth of a skills shortage not only persist, but remain part of what “everyone knows”? Well, there was a nice illustration of the process last fall, when some news media reported that 92 percent of top executives said that there was, indeed, a skills gap. The basis for this claim? A telephone survey in which executives were asked, “Which of the following do you feel best describes the ‘gap’ in the U.S. workforce skills gap?” followed by a list of alternatives. Given the loaded question, it’s actually amazing that 8 percent of the respondents were willing to declare that there was no gap.

The point is that influential people move in circles in which repeating the skills-gap story — or, better yet, writing about skill gaps in media outlets like Politico — is a badge of seriousness, an assertion of tribal identity. And the zombie shambles on.

Unfortunately, the skills myth — like the myth of a looming debt crisis — is having dire effects on real-world policy. Instead of focusing on the way disastrously wrongheaded fiscal policy and inadequate action by the Federal Reserve have crippled the economy and demanding action, important people piously wring their hands about the failings of American workers.

Moreover, by blaming workers for their own plight, the skills myth shifts attention away from the spectacle of soaring profits and bonuses even as employment and wages stagnate. Of course, that may be another reason corporate executives like the myth so much.

So we need to kill this zombie, if we can, and stop making excuses for an economy that punishes workers.

高失業怪勞工不夠格？太扯

摩根大通執行長戴蒙和未來就業（Jobs for the Future）執行長塞爾澤幾個月前共同發表一篇文章，標題為「縮減技能落差」，他們說：「現在有近1,100萬名民眾失業，但同時也有400萬個職缺」－似乎想彰顯「求職者具備的技能與雇主所需技能之間的鴻溝」。

在不斷變遷的經濟環境裡，即使部分職缺找不到人，還是會有人失業。許多研究也已發現，以勞工技能不足來解釋高失業率的論點，缺乏支持證據。

所謂美國正為嚴重的「技能落差」所苦，是每個重要人士都信以為真的事，因為他們認識的每個人都說這是事實。這是典型的殭屍觀念（zombie idea）－早該被證據消滅、卻拒絕死亡的論點。

這種殭屍觀念造成許多傷害。在談那點前，先談我們有多了解技能和就業？想想，如果真的出現技能短缺，會發生什麼事？首先，我們理應看到擁有正確技能的勞工過得很好，缺乏這些技能的勞工過得很差。但其實並非如此，當前各種教育程度勞工的失業率，都遠高於金融海嘯前。

部分雇主確實在抱怨，很難找到具備他們所需技能的勞工。那就請多給點錢：如果雇主真的很想要特定技能，理應支付更高工資吸引具備那些技能的勞工。

但很難看到有哪些群體的勞工獲大幅加薪；就算有，也與傳統看法所認為的不同。例如了解如何操作縫紉機的勞工獲大幅加薪，但我很懷疑，人們抱怨技能落差時心裡所想的就是這類的技能。

不只失業和工資的證據駁斥技能落差之說，對雇主的調查也發現類似結果，波士頓顧問集團就說，「對技能落差危機的憂慮被過度誇大」。

能支持技能落差的唯一證據，就是長期失業率暴升，證明許多勞工欠缺雇主所需的技能。但實情並非如此。長期失業勞工的技能、和被裁員後迅速找到工作的勞工差異不大。那他們的問題是什麼？是因為他們失業，讓雇主根本不願意看他們的資格證書。

那麼，技能短缺的迷思怎麼能一直存在，成為「人人皆知」的事？去年秋季部分媒體報導，92%高層主管認為存在技能落差，但這些主管接到訪調電話時，被問的問題是「你認為以下哪種情況最能描述美國勞工技能落差的『落差』？」儘管問題有圈套，仍有8%受訪者願意宣稱沒有技能落差。

重點在於，具備影響力的人不斷重複技能落差的說法、甚至在媒體發表相關文章，象徵這件事很嚴重，於是殭屍繼續向前走。

技能迷思對真實世界的政策產生悲慘影響。重要人士不願正視財政政策方向錯誤和聯準會（Fed）行動不足已傷害經濟，並要求採取行動，卻虛偽地為勞工的挫敗扼腕。

技能迷思藉由怪罪勞工咎由自取，也能轉移注意力，讓人們不去注意企業獲利與獎金暴增、就業和工資卻停滯的事實。

我們必須消滅這種殭屍，停止幫懲罰勞工的經濟找藉口。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/opinion/krugman-jobs-and-skills-and-zombies.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20140402/c02krugman/zh-hant/

2014-04-03．經濟日報．A6．國際焦點．編譯簡國帆