In the book
What color is your parachute (2005), author Richard N. Bolles pointed out the similarity between the job market and the game of musical chair. In the game, the music starts playing, people get up from their chairs and start marching around chairs. The music stops playing, people scramble to sit down; some succeeded in finding a seat, some don't.
That is just like the job hunting in the job market. The question is, how many chairs are we talking about? How many job-chairs get vacated and have to be filled each day or month? And more importantly, how often does the music starts? or how fast is the music?
In general, certain type of jobs die where other type of jobs born, but this turn-over happens much fast in US compare with many other countries. In recent years, more people are being laid off at the same time that more new jobs are being created. It seems to be hard to keep a job, but easy to find another, especially at a different pay level. So in US, we are playing a very fast musical chair game. Between 1980-1998, based on Tom Perter's 2003 book
'Re-image!', although US had eliminated 44 milllions jobs, it also created 73 millions of new positions, so the net job growth was 29 million, and 2/3 of those 29 millions jobs were high-paying one. During the same period, the European Union, which is 1/3 larger than US in terms of population, added only 4 millions net new jobs, amid very low layoff rates. No wonder the saying "if you want to keep your job, stay in Europe. If you want to find a job, go to America."
In China for the same period, rapid developments in new manufacturing industries prohibit most people older than 40 to find new jobs. Those older worker simply don't have the new skills and energies to compete with the huge population of well trained younger workers. It's becoming more important than ever for American workers to act fast, be able to reinvent themselves, and run with the fast music.
