It’s time to focus on jobs 

One of the core complaints of the protesters in Egypt, Yemen and
elsewhere in the Middle East is the lack of jobs. Youth unemployment in
the Arab countries ranges from 15 to 40 percent. Unemployment is a
specter that haunts young graduates at every level, causing them to
postpone marriage and family while they endure a long and uncertain 
period of “wait-hood.” 

Joblessness is not confined to the Arab world. It’s also a big problem here in America for persons of all ages. The continuing high unemployment rate means a reduction of tax revenue and the sustained payment of unemployment benefits. The lowered rate of consumption that results from reduced buying power is a drag on America’s economic recovery. If jobs are the key, how can the private sector be encouraged to resume hiring?  

One way to start would be to expand our exploitation of the time frontier. In the 19th century, residents along the eastern seaboard discovered opportunities for both jobs and profit in the vacant lands west of the Mississippi. Americans today can imitate those pioneers without the need to travel. They can more fully exploit the vacant frontier of time.

As an economic resource, time equates to space. In his 1987 seminal work, Night as Frontier; Colonizing the World After Dark, Professor Murray Melbin of Boston University compared the exploitation of darkness with the Westward movement in American history. Yet economists have largely ignored the value of time, preferring to focus on tangible objects of value.  

As lighting methods improved over the centuries, the hours of darkness became potential hours of production. Night work increased, but even in such nonstop cities as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, it remains marginal. Globalization and the Internet have dramatically increased the demand for businesses that can respond on a 24/7 basis.  Although some companies, such as L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine, have found it cost-efficient to remain open through the night, the fact is that we have not taken control of our dark hours. The nighttime frontier remains largely as a wilderness, open and unexploited.    

To create jobs, the private sector, with encouragement and support of the federal and state governments, should adopt policies that promote increased use of the time frontier. Two ideas that could underlie such policies are (1) the nonstop enterprise and (2) the eight-day week.

Nonstop enterprise: The remaining barriers between day and night should be stripped away, beginning with current work attitudes and policies. Employers, entrepreneurs and workers should abandon the notion that, except for a minority of shift workers, production is only a daytime pursuit. Indeed, shift work should be transformed into regular night work. This would not only eliminate the health hazard of frequent time changes, but would also establish a more permanent occupation of the time frontier.  While employers might need some tax incentives to expand their production time horizons, they would soon see the economic advantage of using their workspace on a more intensive basis. The more nighttime economic activity, the more workers and the more consumers to fuel our economy.

Eight-day week: Company revision of the workweek would complement the nonstop enterprise by further exploiting the night frontier for production and jobs.  For example, a company wishing to make use of the 168 hours in a week might devise four full-time work shifts for a greater expansion of the time frontier. The eight-day schedule would allow businesses to operate more flexibly though the weekend as well as during the nights. With an eight day/24 hour work schedule, companies could be more responsive to global clients, many of which treat Saturdays and Sundays as workdays, and they would need to hire more workers to cover the increased production time.

The nonstop enterprise and eight-day week won’t solve the jobs crisis immediately. The two approaches will take time to win acceptance and to implement. When the time frontier is fully occupied, however, we can expect a more than doubling of jobs. We can also expect other benefits, such as the possibility of regular three-day weekends and the greater illumination of the hours of darkness.  

Hager is the former president of the Education For Employment Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Washington.