Job Sharing to Reduce Unemployment

I was fortunate to graduate and get a very stable job just before the big economic down turn a couple of years ago. The college graduates from 2008 until now have not been so fortunate, and even some from my graduating class have struggled to keep their jobs - not because they aren't competent but because they were still the newbies and the easiest to let go with only a year or two of experience. My recent look at the engineering job market has shed some light on things for me. For years, people have been saying that we need more engineers in this country. The fact is that now, there are way more new engineering graduates than there are entry-level jobs for them. While I am not entry-level any more, I did look for entry level jobs in different fields of engineering, and they are hard to come by. Companies just aren't interested in investing in new workers now, but there are lots of engineering jobs open to experiences professionals, who can contribute right away.

When I started working full time in May 2007, the unemployment rate in the US was 4.3%. Today it is 9.5% and it's not really expected to change in the next 6 months to a year. When the unemployed are high school dropouts and people with relatively no professional skills, that's not such a big deal, but when you have college graduates - bright engineers and scientists - who can't find a job, that's a problem. Now, I know next to nothing about economics but I do know that people want to work and that people would be willing to make some sacrifices to keep their jobs, and most people would rather work part-time that be unemployed. In fact, working part-time may in fact be healthier.

When I first started here, I remember hearing about a couple - both engineers - who shared their job. One of them would work on the morning, the other would work in the afternoons. They could take turns taking care of the kids and probably were more productive at work that way than either of them would be working full-time. It's no secret that it's easier to be really productive when you have to work only a short period of time than when you have to work longer. It is possible to divide things up too much and spend too much time shifting gears but 4 hour shift I believe are about perfect for optimal productivity, but what do I know?

I'm surprised I haven't heard more about this concept of job sharing in the last few years as companies have been down-sizing and laying off employees. It seems like a great idea to scale everyone's hours back instead of laying off some and keeping the rest to work full-time. Surely, the work force would rather have a normal 5% unemployment with another 10% of the people working half-time than have 10% unemployment and none of this half-time stuff.

Maybe it's my very left-wing political views that want to see this sort of structure more frequently in society. So, instead of hiring one newbie to work full time, or more than full time, hire two newbies to share the one job. Rather than lay off a guy who's been a solid employee for 2 years and keep 2 others who have about the same qualifications, reduce all their hours from 40 to 25 per week. Sure, they won't all be happy and they won't be getting paid as much as they want and probably deserve, but at least they'll all be making a contribution and will as a whole be better positioned to contribute more when the economy picks up again.