Job creation value
Just to clarify, I have no experience, academic background or deep understanding of economics. Apologies for such a basic question but I couldn't find a real answer.
I hear a lot about job creation:
- "This will create X jobs"
- "Losing jobs overseas"
- Etc.
I have trouble understanding the inherent value of the current amount of jobs to society. If jobs are lost together with the productivity they created then I get why there is a problem. For example: A factory was destroyed in a fire, the workers lost their jobs, and society lost the productivity of the factory. But if all other things remain equal, what is the value of a job? I'm going to add my very naïve analysis below to help illustrate my thinking.
Naïve interpretation
Let's say we have a country that has some people working right now. Suddenly 10,000 stopped working without affecting productivity. Maybe there was a temporary need that was filled or perhaps some technology made their jobs obsolete.
If current amount of jobs is an inherently positive thing, I should now be at a worse state than before. As I see it, I just got 10,000 potential workers. Modern humans, even not well trained ones, produce vastly more than they cost to support.
I can certainly understand that it can be traumatic to lose your job but that's an argument for job stability or something, not job creation.
The argument that all those people are not retrainable at all, seems a bit far-fetched. They can't all be 60 year olds who trained their entire life in this field and are uneducated in absolutely anything else. And if that was the case, it would be better treated as a surprising early retirement. Tragic for people who weren't prepared, yes, but a completely different problem.