Suckemployment: The Hidden Third Employment Statistic
The attention to unemployment numbers over the last 2.5 years has spawned a new statistical trend: undermployment. Essentially, the unemployment numbers only tell a partial story of an economy dealing with a deep recession. What unemployment numbers don’t count are the people who are employed, but not enough to really pay the bills. They’re technically employed, but still hurting. If you really want to get a good feel for an economy’s health, some argue, look at the numbers of underemployed.
I like the direction we’re headed here. In fact, I think we should keep going. I propose a third level, beyond underemployment, which I call suckemployment. If someone has a job and is able to pay their bills, but they brutally hate their work, their boss, and their lives in general, then they are suckemployed. They not be unemployed, and they may not even be underemployed, but they are very much suckemployed.
Suckemployment is the consequence of an economy that is failing to produce jobs that people don’t hate. While not necessarily as easy to track as unemployment and underemployment, which are tied to easily quantifiable things like income and debt, suckemployment tracks something arguably as important: whether someone is living a life that’s worth living.
The statistics, I fear, are dire. You might likely know some people who are out of work, but how many people do you know who hate the work they’re doing? A lot? More than a few?
Common wisdom is that unemployment is a bad statistic; it’s in our collective best interest to turn someone who’s out of work, and hence not contributing to society, into someone who is gainfully employed, paying their taxes, and otherwise contributing.
What benefit might we see, however, if we took that a step further? Would a person who is employed, but only barely, simply putting in their time because they have to, not be making a far better contribution to society if they were making a living doing something they absolutely love, something they eat and breathe and can’t stop thinking about? If someone is doing something they’re good at, and love learning everything about, surely they’d be better than if they were suckemployed, right?
We offer lots of help and services for people who are un(der)employed. What might we be able to do for people who are suckemployed?
Perhaps, in the process, we can help people who are completely unemployed leapfrog right into doing work they love.
