Anything that’s called something enough times by enough people becomes something, even if the name it’s given, once scrutinized carefully, becomes questionable semantically. It might be better, for the sake of clarity and intellectual rigor, to refer to the thing named rather than the name itself, whether you accept the name or not. But the name, particularly for journalists (but not just), is an expedient form of shorthand for the thing. This labeling might be fine for them, but for anybody wishing to properly attend to what the thing actually is, it is not so fine. The thing the shorthand term refers to is (likely) mutable, and the shorthand term has a tendency to fix things into place and occlude, obscure or even destroy (the sense of) its shifting nature.
With that in mind, although I recognize the necessary caveat be put into place before saying something doesn’t exist – to wit: noting that it does actually exist in some form precisely because it has currency in social discourse – I nonetheless also recognize the creative effects of saying of something that seems so commonly perceived as being something real, that it actually is not. Therefore I say it now: The job market does not exist and it is not hot.
It is a mystery to me how this idea ever got started that there is such a thing as a job market. And I confess that the notion seemed so evident that I took to it right away and have even referred to it as though it did exist. But, although the idea has currency (and as such, I supposed it ought to be something that is subject to trade, and thus available to market), I know now that the thing itself is not currency, cannot be traded, and thereby is not marketable. If jobs are not marketable, then there is no job market.
Of course, under certain circumstances, both specific skills and specific jobs are marketable. Given that there are job boards where you can bid on someone’s services, and thus also be someone who offers such on the same board, then with respect to those specific services, there is a market. That job board represents a market. But it is a market that is discreet and specific not global and general. Which is to say that there are specific opportunities to take specific skills (not just any) to particular markets to trade. For example, if you are a computer programmer with knowledge and experience developing for web, then you can trade those skills on certain job boards. However, although that board might represent a demand for those skills, it might also represent a surplus of suppliers, and consequently the trading might not favour the person with the skill. It could go either way, of course. Fair enough; such are the behaviours and ramifications of a market.
The implication of a “hot” market, these days, in the business articles I read in Canada, is that employers’ demand for employees outnumbers the number of available employees. But such a claim is rather glib. They treat this as though it were a global condition, but the sort of jobs that are available, and the sort of skills that are requested are quite specific and narrow in scope. There might well be a surfeit of jobs in that part of the service industry represented by restauranteurs (including coffee houses), and retailers. There might also be a good deal of positions open for particular sorts of work in the construction industry (including renovation), and in the mining or production of natural resources (gas, oil, metal and minerals). But there are many pools with far less water and many more swimmers. Even these particular job industries that are “hot” are so only in certain respects. Management positions are not necessarily as plentiful as ones for general or specifically skilled labour (the soldiers in the field, so to speak).
How did all the various industries, with all of their various degrees of supply and demand regarding employers, employees, and the need for employment come be called a market, and come to be construed as being “hot”? I suppose that it might have something to do with the observation that demographics representing the mass of potential employees (and I suppose, by extension, employers - although I don’t read much about that aspect) is shifting with regard to its age. The basic assumption and arithmetic is that there shall soon be less people working than there will be people who are retired. There is hence a perceived opening glut of opportunities (and needs), for which there will be a difficulty in filling. Solutions to this problem are currently being suggested, and have something to do with recent discussions around amendments to regulations governing immigration, which are further involved with such issues as rewriting the criteria for recognized international qualifications. Again, this is all with regard to specific industries that are being addressed – it is not a general analysis and assessment of the job market as such (at least not so far as I know). And I shall hazard to say that it this is because there is no job market as such.
I think the term job market is reflective of a laziness on the one hand (and in which case, it is a mostly benign sort of tumor). But on the other hand, given that I think that it creates a false impression, and some degree of false hope for those who seek employment, I can’t but help wonder if it doesn’t signify something more than just the typical tendency to simplify complex matters for the sake of “easier” communication. I don’t know what that is yet though.
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