throwaway-sorry

Most of the commentary here is focused on the high end, but there's a bigger problem on the low end of the labor market.

Our government plows tons of money into job services, training add, and other programs at the state/local level. There are some really successful agencies, but there is a hell of a lot of waste where the system just helps enough to "check the box" that you're trying to find work and eligible for unemployment.

A huge part of the problem is that the workers don't trust the system. And why would they, when massive data breaches happen due to poor handling of data. See http://www.securityweek.com/joblink-breach-affects-job-seeke...

Unfortunately, this problem is only going to get worse as more data is accumulated by state agencies unqualified to watch over it. I firmly believe that if we reformed the data systems and the programs relying on them at the state level we could make a lot of progress on the lower end of the labor market to get people re-engaged, more productive, and start growing skills.

As those people increase skills and responsibilities shift to them, the people who are freed up will be able to become more productive and move up-market as well.

Which sounds like a pipe dream - but what person in IT hasn't been tied up with "junior work" they would be happy to unload if there was anybody to do it? And once that task finally goes away, you go on to do better things.

Could be worse. I still wake up sweating thinking about a former job where several million identities were stolen. Tech staff tried to prevent it, even predicting high risk of mistake, but management pushed through it anyway.

A business mess is one thing, but losing somebody's identity is another level of feeling shitty.