Dietz, you can blame me along with your mom. But you've described my career well. I entered the (post-college) workforce in 1971, without having included anything in my education that focused on productivity enhancement, and--guess what?--I knocked around all kinds of jobs for 20 years, until the skills (and maturity) I'd picked up began to click in. At 55, I'd just helped to finish a major automotive's supply-chain communications to my employer's platform, and then I basically managed that service until I retired. My income was going up but it's doubtful that my productivity was still increasing. So I fit. (Nice post, btw.)
This reminds me of a blog series I did back in 2015, swinging off an insight of JW Mason's:
https://fistfulofeuros.eu/afoe/a-little-model-of-the-labour-market/
Basically if you're changing your labour market institutions to push people to GET A JOB ANY JOB you should expect worse productivity.
I see some other voices have come to similar conclusions, e.g. the Financial Times here on the UK:
https://archive.li/PFpCv#selection-2271.0-2275.188
And Max Krahé at Dezernat Zukunft here, on Italy:
https://www.dezernatzukunft.org/understanding-italys-stagnation/
Dietz, you can blame me along with your mom. But you've described my career well. I entered the (post-college) workforce in 1971, without having included anything in my education that focused on productivity enhancement, and--guess what?--I knocked around all kinds of jobs for 20 years, until the skills (and maturity) I'd picked up began to click in. At 55, I'd just helped to finish a major automotive's supply-chain communications to my employer's platform, and then I basically managed that service until I retired. My income was going up but it's doubtful that my productivity was still increasing. So I fit. (Nice post, btw.)