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One person not being able to sell their skills is a personal problem, a significant number of people who can't find work with their skillset and a significant n

One person not being able to sell their skills is a personal problem, a significant number of people who can't find work with their skillset and a significant number of employers unable to find people with skills is a market failure. We're at a market failure and there is economic loss as a result.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
Yeah not really. It depends on a lot more context than just number of skilled people unable to find employment. If I became the best person in the world at playing Pac-Man, but couldn’t find a job as a professional Pac-Man player, it would be ridiculous to say I was underemployed. The only situation I would find it reasonable to describe underemployment as a problem is when people who’s skills were marketable at the time they acquired them, are no longer marketable. But even then, it takes more context to describe that as a market failure. If I decided to never learn another skill at work, then my skills would eventually become obsolete. In that situation, the market hasn’t failed me, I have failed me. Then you have people who’s skills were known to be completely unmarketable at the time they acquired them. This isn’t a market failure in any way. The most common context where this occurs could be described as a governance failure though. The fact that you can get huge amounts of credit to pursue an education that doesn’t have any market value at all isn’t a market failure. It’s a failure of government for financially guaranteeing something that doesn’t have any value. When people who made bad decisions fail, that is a market success.
- Can_Not 7y ago
  > If I became the best person in the world at playing Pac-Man, but couldn’t find a job as a professional Pac-Man player, it would be ridiculous to say I was underemployed. It would be ridiculous, because we're not talking about one person with a fringe occupation as a strawman, we're talking about large groups of normal people facing systemic problems.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    Putting aside the fact that this assessment is really just your opinion, what was your reasons for claiming this is a market failure? I believe you never got around to mentioning that.

AmericanChopper 7y ago

Yeah not really. It depends on a lot more context than just number of skilled people unable to find employment. If I became the best person in the world at playing Pac-Man, but couldn’t find a job as a professional Pac-Man player, it would be ridiculous to say I was underemployed. The only situation I would find it reasonable to describe underemployment as a problem is when people who’s skills were marketable at the time they acquired them, are no longer marketable. But even then, it takes more context to describe that as a market failure. If I decided to never learn another skill at work, then my skills would eventually become obsolete. In that situation, the market hasn’t failed me, I have failed me. Then you have people who’s skills were known to be completely unmarketable at the time they acquired them. This isn’t a market failure in any way. The most common context where this occurs could be described as a governance failure though. The fact that you can get huge amounts of credit to pursue an education that doesn’t have any market value at all isn’t a market failure. It’s a failure of government for financially guaranteeing something that doesn’t have any value. When people who made bad decisions fail, that is a market success.

Can_Not 7y ago
> If I became the best person in the world at playing Pac-Man, but couldn’t find a job as a professional Pac-Man player, it would be ridiculous to say I was underemployed. It would be ridiculous, because we're not talking about one person with a fringe occupation as a strawman, we're talking about large groups of normal people facing systemic problems.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  Putting aside the fact that this assessment is really just your opinion, what was your reasons for claiming this is a market failure? I believe you never got around to mentioning that.