“Highest stock market EVER! Jobs are roaring back!” boasted Donald Trump in a tweet in December. The US president is the most prominent advocate of the idea that quantity is almost all that counts when it comes to jobs.
But job numbers alone are an increasingly crude barometer of economic health. For workers under pressure from changing technology and globalisation, a new measure is required, based on job quality as much as job quantity.
More subtle politicians have been quick to realise this. Philip Hammond, UK chancellor of the exchequer, referred in his Budget speech in November to a “relentless focus on getting more people into work”. But he added the condition that such work should be “good quality and well paid”.