RESOLVING AMERICA’S HUMAN CAPITAL PARADOX: A PROPOSAL FOR A JOBS COMPACT
Name
Kochan _RESOLVING AMERICA’S dec 2011.pdf
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567 KB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Kochan, Thomas Anton
Date Issued
March 2012
Citation
Kochan, Thomas A. "Resolving America's Human Capital Paradox: A Jobs Compact for America's Future." November 2011.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
It’s generally understood that the United States can’t be competitive—and won’t be able to support high, and rising, living standards—without a well-trained, well-paid, and continuously improving workforce that can compete with the best that other countries have to offer.Yet, at all levels of the economy, we behave as if we don’t believe this: firms value short-term profits over investment in the workforce; federal policymakers tolerate high, persistent unemployment and underemployment; wages for most of the workforce have stagnated for three decades, despite gains in productivity; unions have become a convenient scapegoat despite their sharp decline in influence; and job satisfaction nationally has declined steadily over the past decade.
Why this human capital paradox? At one level, the reasons are complex—and, as a result, there can be no single, silver-bullet solution. At another level, though, we’re looking at a simple market failure, and a not-so-simple institutional one.
Let’s start with the market failure.
Description
This paper was prepared for the Harvard Business School’s Competitiveness Summit, November 28-29, 2011. A shorter version published in Harvard Business Review March 2012, vol. 90, Issue 3, p.64-72.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
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