Jobs are not necessarily a good thing.

Meaningful activity is good. Most jobs don’t provide that.

Always thinking job creation is a good thing is just another bullshit linguistic trick loaded down with ideologies nobody wants to admit out loud. There’s a lot of weird Christian stuff. Protestant work ethic. But it’s deeper and older. Primal. Let’s just admit it. Sometimes it seems like the strong and lucky want the weak and unlucky to work (preferably for them, for as little as possible) or die.

When I hear about “job creation” my mind goes to miserable jobs, endless hours of soul-crushing boredom.

Jobs that do the dirty drudge-work to help owners get richer.

That’s all job creation is: A chance to not be on the dole. A chance to make a little more, but never enough for freedom or options. Just enough to stay in my fucking lane.

The thinking is that it doesn’t matter, a job’s a job. Shut up and be grateful. ANY job is a blessing in a competitive world because it beats starving to death.

And with a little money in your pocket, if you play your cards right, you guys out there can date a strong 3 or 4. Maybe pass on those genes after all, instead of blowing all your potential into a Kleenex day after day.

Fucking brutal.

Let’s take a look at this for a sec.

A Gallup poll has it that 85% of workers worldwide are “disengaged or unhappy” in their jobs. A Harvard Business Review report says 50% of the workforce feels their job holds no "meaning and significance.”

RAND Corp., Harvard Medical School, and the University of California confirm that nearly 20% of workers face a “hostile or threatening environment at work.”

Dang. Why live? (Exactly. Bingo. Now you’re getting it.)

How you interpret these numbers says a lot about how you spend your day. If you live a life of freedom and luxury or enjoy your job, you rationalize, turn a blind eye. You probably say some version of “nothing can be done about it so quit whining.”

But if you’re in the majority of miserable losers living in a grey hell, you might see the numbers as a global tragedy. You’re going to like the “whining,” and think that something BETTER be done about it, and soon, or it won’t be just whining forever. It’ll be pitchforks.

Stop using catch all terms like “more jobs” as a way to point to good news or better economic health. It’s neither of those things. It’s a “slavery utilization report.”

Call employment what it is: 'lifework' or 'deadwork'.

Adding these two terms will help us cut the superficiality of 'job creation' metrics, which is just a tool of mass manipulation.

'Lifework' is jobs that not only provide basic living but contribute positively to the worker’s well-being and makes the world better in some way. Fair pay, meaningful tasks, personal growth. Good net impact on society and the environment.

‘Deadwork' is work hurts workers and the world. These roles are exploitative. They enrich the few while shitting on everything and everyone else. Bad for the environment, unethical, and creates products or services that ultimately hurt us.

We don’t want to shame people who do 'deadwork' to live, but we want to call it what it is so that we stop celebrating it.

Policymakers, business leaders, and society at large need to stop looking at quantity of jobs as the metric that matters.

Employment is a big part of economics. But 'job creation' doesn’t tell the full story. Adopting the terms 'lifework' and 'deadwork' makes us think about how we divide up the resources. Time is a resource. Meaning is a resource. Freedom is a resource.

Jobs should offer fulfillment, growth, and collective well-being or they should be cut. If you’re in that position: Find useful shit to do or don’t do it. ✊ Demand a life that a reasonable human being would find worth living. In the U.S. especially, there’s no reason to make people slave all day for peanuts. Fuck that.