A jobless recovery + 10 million unemployed = A wake up call and an opportunity

"Here in the US we’ve had 0% job growth in the last 10 years. That’s right, there’s been no net increase of jobs in 10 years. There are multiple reasons why this is happening. Some of it is because the consumer economy is retracting and frankly needs less and less workers. Technology is also replacing millions of people and we’ve outsourced jobs overseas as a way to continue to cut labor costs out of production. Put it all together and there has been no job growth in the United States. This is a reality that we knew was happening but we chose to ignore it during the good times. But as this recession continues, it is becoming increasing impossible to maintain our ignorance.

Even as we look forward to this recession ending, over and over again you hear the phrase ‘jobless recovery’. And this makes a lot of sense considering we didn’t have job growth in the last 10 years when the economy looked like it was in good shape (Ha!).

EconomySo, when you mix a jobless recovery plus 10 million unemployed in the US, what are you looking at? Well, it isn’t going to look pretty, that’s for sure. Literally millions will remain unemployed or under-employed and that will not bode well for our future. But it is wrong to believe that we can’t create a solution to this. We need get out heads out of the sand and recognize that the old model of the consumer economy’s measurement and monetization system no longer is sufficient to meet our needs. We have to come up with a new economic model. It isn’t as hard as one might imagine. Frankly, it’s the strong suit of the United States—creating new solutions is what we do best!

Here’s an option: a Triple Bottom Line economy (3BL) instead of the current consumer/market/unlimited growth and production equals a profitable economy. A 3BL is designed to support people, the planet (plants, animals, land, water, etc.) and businesses concurrently. This allows us to f measure and monetize all the economic activities where work (and life) takes place. When making choices under a 3BL, all three areas are of equal importance. The result? We can expand the employment sectors that we measure and monetize to 6 employment sectors instead of the current 3. And voila, instead of a jobless recovery, we’ve created three new areas to absorb the 10 million people who need to be a vibrant part of a thriving 3BL economy.

The three new sectors are:"...(click link to read more)