“Find Something New”

This week, Ivanka Trump announced a campaign called “Find Something New” (see https://findsomethingnew.org/). She did so in her role as co-chair of the White House’s American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, created in 2018. If you go to the site, you will find a list of jobs that are actually in demand right now, according to the U.S. Labor Department, –  jobs like aerospace engineering and operations technician, broadcast and sound engineering technician, or computer support specialist. Admittedly, some re-skilling would be necessary to fill these positions.

Would you have the time to go for the required up-skilling, if you are one of the 5.4 million people who are out of work and no longer have health insurance because they lost employer-provided health care?  Or if you have to stay at home, because your kids do not go to school, and somebody has to care for them?

Critics of the programme put it into the “let them eat cake” category. It is true that the post COVID economy will look quite different from the economy before. Whole sectors of the economy will shrink dramatically, and others will stagnate because consumer demand will need considerable time to recover. So many people have to look for employment elsewhere.

The programme is criticized because it puts the responsibility for future employment squarely on the shoulders of the individual:  “just pull up your bootstraps, folks”. But the present wave of unemployment is not due to a skills crisis.  This is a gigantic macro-economic challenge, resulting from a public health emergency. It needs a coordinated approach of government and the private sector to create more employment, and to facilitate individuals to become fit for the new jobs. Individual “re-skilling” alone will not do it.