Doug Henwood wrote, >I talked to a guy at the BLS once who basically said - in more polite >bureacratic language - that they don't count underemployment because they >have no way to measure what its opposite would be, just-right employment or >whatever you want to call it. A cellist might feel underemployed driving a >taxi, but she may be a crappy cellist. This is an extremely interesting -- and tendentious -- interpretation. What the guy at the BLS implied then is that the employment/unemployment dichotomy is, BY CONTRAST, relatively clear cut. This apparent obviousness of the employment/unemployment dichotomy is achieved by sleight of hand. The employment/unemployment pair is only "unambiguous" in comparison to a supposedly "more ambiguous" concept of underemployment. Underemployment is more ambiguous because it has no opposite. But employment is only the "opposite" of unemployment because we have prima facie disallowed the concept of underemployment. In other words, the whole rigamarole of ambiguity and unambiguity is the result of an arbitrary and self-justifying set of definitions. The lousy cellist may be an even lousier taxi driver. A better taxi driver may be playing even worse cello in the philharmonic. The guy from the BLS may be a superb cellist, taxi-driver and statistician who is underemployed because -- instead of crunching numbers all day long -- he should be driving taxi in the morning, crunching numbers in the afternoon and playing cello in the evening. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
