Shop top categories that ship internationally
Buy used:
$3.79
$27.55 delivery December 17 - January 6. Details
Or fastest delivery December 6 - 11. Details
Used: Good | Details
Sold by FCD Books & More
Condition: Used: Good
Comment: Edition: First; Softcover, Some cover corner & edge wear, Otherwise pages are clean, tight and mostly crisp, Item Shrink-wrapped for additional protection
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

James B. Huntington
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Work's New Age: The End of Full Employment and What It Means to You Paperback – November 14, 2011

by James B. Huntington (Author)
3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars 13 ratings
See all formats and editions
Employment in America has become a depressing subject. The recession is officially long over, yet 32 million Americans want to work full-time and are not. Neither political side is getting anywhere with the problem, and Washington has almost stopped discussing it, let alone implementing anything to solve or even improve it. Work's New Age, a 2012 Independent Publisher Book Award winner, is the first full-length book since the recession's end to address this massive national concern. It explains, in terms of numbers, trends, and social patterns that we can all understand, why the connection between workers available and work needed has changed permanently. Using a wide variety of examples and extensions of work of multidisciplinary observers and thinkers, it provides a comprehensive view of America's employment crisis. This incisive, timely book, featured on over 130 American radio stations coast to coast, clearly presents the truth about American employment. Whether you are working, between jobs, or safely retired, it will alert you to changes that will affect you and your loved ones in the years and decades to come.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    224 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Royal Flush Press
  4. Publication date
    November 14, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.5 x 8.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0983500630
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0983500636
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Dr. Huntington's research is a milestone in understanding how and why the changes have occurred in the past four decades. This information provides a path to the beginning of solutions for our workforces. His reflections on volunteering and its direct and indirect rewards returns us to the very roots America was built on." --Timothy Michael Ricke, Entrepreneur of the Year and Florida Business Person of the Year

About the Author

James B. Huntington has been a business professor, teacher, and professional speaker. His 2007 doctoral dissertation is the only book written on career jobs for post-65 baby boomers. He has also written on leadership, organizational change, and human development. He has an MBA from the University of Phoenix and a PhD in applied management and decision sciences from Walden University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Royal Flush Press; First Edition (November 14, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0983500630
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0983500636
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 8.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars 13 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
James B. Huntington

James B. Huntington

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

James B. Huntington, author, blogger, economist, and publisher, is the writer of Choosing a Lasting Career: The Job-by-Job Outlook for Work's New Age. His previous book was the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY)-winning Work's New Age: The End of Full Employment and What It Means to You, from 2012. His 2007 doctoral dissertation, Prospects for Increased Post-65 Career Employment for the Baby Boom Generation, is the only book ever published on that subject. He is also the creator and keeper of the AJSN (American Job Shortage Number), the key economic indicator showing latent demand for jobs in the United States. He hosts a weekly radio program, WORK SHIFT, on WJFF 90.5 FM, a PBS affiliate in Jeffersonville, New York. He writes the Work’s New Age blog at http://worksnewage.blogspot.com/. His letter on the jobs crisis being permanent and not going away with better economic times was the theme of the May 19, 2013 Sunday Dialogue in The New York Times. He has a B.A. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, an M.B.A. from the University of Phoenix, and a Ph.D. in Applied Management and Decision Sciences from Walden University. He has spoken on jobs, careers, employment, and economic conditions on more than 130 American radio stations coast to coast. He has also been a business professor, teacher, and professional speaker, and has written scholarly works on leadership, organizational change, and human development. He is married and lives in Eldred, New York.

You can get more information about James's books and efforts at www.royalflushpress.com, and keep up with Choosing a Lasting Career, Work's New Age, the AJSN, and James on the Work's New Age blog, at http://worksnewage.blogspot.com/ . Starting May 29th, you can listen to WORK SHIFT, James's weekly radio show, on Wednesday mornings from 10:00 to 10:05 ET, on PBS-affiliate WJFF, 90.5 FM in Jeffersonville, New York, and streaming online at www.wjffradio.org .

Customer reviews

3.5 out of 5 stars
13 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

George
4.0 out of 5 stars Good explanation of the problem
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2012
Verified Purchase
He did a good job of explaining why high unemployment is now structurally built into the American economy. I disagree with some of his sort-term remedies, like lowering the minimum wage, which would just make more people miserable. But in the long run I think he's right that we'll have to provide people with some other means of support, such as a guarranteed anual income, which was proposed decades ago. We have a permanent labor surplus in the U.S. -- at least in terms of what people are willing to pay for -- and a much lager global surplus. With a globalized economy, Americans are now competing with workers in countries with a much lower standard of living. Automation is probably the larger problem.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jayne
2.0 out of 5 stars An Important Conversation, Poorly Executed
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2012
Verified Purchase
The author has engaged an important topic, one about which remarkably few books are presently available. For recognizing the importance of the issue and doing the work to publish a book, I give it two stars. Unfortunately, this book suffers from some serious flaws - so serious, in fact, that Work's New Age has the distinction of being the only book I have ever returned for a refund.

First, it is obviously entirely unedited for grammer, syntax, and style. Strangely constructed sentences, run-on paragraphs, an excess of direct quotes from other sources, poorly formatted charts and tables (at least on the Kindle version) and awkward or missing transitions hinder an understanding of what is being presented. The worst of it is that in several places, the author makes guesses about what might happen that sound weak and unsupported, and this undermines his authority on the topic. Clearly he has done a lot of study, reading, and research, but it's wasted when he uses all that he has learned to generate thought experiments for which there is no scaffolding.

Second, the book assumes that past trends will necessarily continue. For example, it presupposes that automation will always reduce the number of jobs, and globalization will always result in brain drain and downward pressure on wages. All of the research and all of the solutions discussed in the book revolve around these assumptions, and the resulting picture is indeed scary. However, there's a fundamentally circular argument buried in the book. It's this: prices must be kept low, or an underemployed population will be unable to support its basic needs; and low prices can only be achieved and maintained with low overhead, principally low employment costs. Only big business can create the conditions for low overhead that lead to low prices. Thus, we have a marketplace dominated by big business that drives prices and wages down, which results in underemployment and no growth. Bleak, indeed.

I am unpersuaded (to say the least) that this circular argument defines the sum total of our options as an economy. I wish the author had explored more productive options, as well as the darker ones he did explore. For instance, what if we as a culture fully grasped the import of always shopping for lowest price? The other day, for example, I bought socks at Target because they were less expensive than the socks in my locally owned shoe store. Target had them packaged three pairs for $8. But when I opened the package, I discovered that two pair were thin stockings sure to fail after just a wearing or two. This is how Target keeps its sock pricing down: by giving the illusion of quantity, but delivering poor quality so that I'll need more socks in weeks rather than months. I'd have been better off buying the more expensive socks from my local store, and the obvious personal reasons are just the start of it. What if we could learn the value of paying more for locally produced goods that are part of a true marketplace that engages not just in commerce, but in community? Perhaps we would make different choices that would naturally temper the tendency of big businesses to produce more with less.

The book contains a few glimmers of ideas that should be part of our public discourse. Should we aspire to be a nation of 1 percenters, when it's the 99 percent that support the economy? What do we human beings do with our time and energy when work does not demand everything of us? Are we risking breeding a culture that cannot join the workforce even if jobs are available? What is the definition of value, and is there a way to compensate people for value they add, other than giving them jobs in profit-centered businesses? Unfortunately, these engaging ideas get short shrift and little deep thinking.

All in all, an important topic gets a well-meaning effort, and a few glimmers of interesting possibilities, but suffers from a lack of editing and a straitjacket of assumptions that don't have to be true. I'm looking forward to some other book on this subject that does a better job of engaging me with clear thinking and broader possibilities.
28 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
DAVID M. DOAN, MD
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2014
Verified Purchase
Very informative in giving us some ideas of what is happening to the workforce
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Michelle K. Malsbury
3.0 out of 5 stars Work's New Age Review
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2012
James B. Huntington, Ph.D., Author
Work's New Age, The End of Full Employment and What It Means to You
Royal Flush Press, ISBN 978-0-9835006-3-6
Non-Fiction/Educational, 217 pages
April 2012 Review for Bookpleasures
Reviewer-Michelle Kaye Malsbury, BSBM, MM

Review
Doctor Huntington's 2007 Dissertation hinged on career jobs for the post-65 baby boomers and was the only one of its kind published at that time. (2012, p.217) He has worked as a professor, teacher, and professional speaker and added to scholarship on the topics of leadership, organizational change, and human development.

This book opens with some "New Age Principles". Those principles range in topic from how profitable organizations grow without adding jobs to efficiencies applied in bad times too often continuing into the good times and well into the phenomena regarding the ability of younger workers to locate jobs at all and more.

Chapter 1 talks about how many more people are college educated than ever before, but also how those educations have not translated into more jobs in the marketplace. For instance, "During the 1960's, only 10% of those just finishing college took positions below their educational level." (2012, p.18) That number increased to 33% by 1970/71 and is even larger now. There is discussion about how recoveries take longer after each recessional period and how many families have at least one person who has been victim of reduced pay/hours or lost their jobs altogether. And because people are living longer there are huge numbers of people each year applying for social security/disability benefits. Harrington hypothecates that the children of the Boomers will fare far worse than their Boomer parents in the jobless marketplace.

Chapter 2 talks about automation and the result from same. Huntington states that "In the 1970's, jobs lost to improved technology were also largely or completely offset by employment growth elsewhere. " (2012, p.44) Furthermore, he [Huntington] believes that mechanization has replaced over 7 million jobs each year. These are jobs that will not be replaced or renewed, but must be transplanted elsewhere in another sector if they are to be recouped. Doctor Huntington concurs with Zuckerman who said that too much automation could destabilize America. (paraphrase, 2012, p.46) Another facet of our jobless landscape according to Harrington is the number of jobs being outsourced to other locales taking advantage of cheaper labor markets abroad. (p.74)

Later on in this book Huntington says "Education and even training are valuable for many purposes, including personal enrichment, but they are not the tools we need to combat widespread joblessness." (2012, p.104) To which he adds, "Demand for employees needing little education is expected to rise more than for others, yet constant-dollar pay for those not completing high school dropped from $13.45 to $11.38 per hours between 1973-2007..." (p.118)

I found this a very interesting read and believe you will too. There is a plethora of data regarding medicare/disability and other healthcare expenses v. those of some of our neighboring nations, how immigrants might shape the future of work in America and more.
Helpful
 Report