Is creating unsophisticated jobs and implementing large-scale redistributive policies enough to ensure social stability?
The first major development in OECD countries is the polarisation of the labour market: intermediate jobs are disappearing to the benefit of (a few) high-skill jobs and (many) unsophisticated domestic service jobs. The outlook is therefore not mass unemployment, but low unemployment obtained by significant creation of unsophisticated, low-paid jobs. The second development is redistributive policies; if the spontaneous dynamics is a polarisation and therefore the creation of many low-paid jobs, the effects of this dynamics on income inequality can be offset by large-scale redistributive policies (as is being done in France, for example). So we are asking the following question: if the coming trend in OECD countries is to obtain full employment by creating unsophisticated, low-paid jobs combined with large-scale redistributive policies, will this prevent social instability? Even if the unemployment rate is low and income inequality is reduced by redistributive policies, the problem of deskilling of employees remains: they have to accept jobs that are less sophisticated than what their level of educ ation should enable them to obtain. The frustration stemming from this deskilling can be enough to generate social instability, even if the issues of unemployment and inequality have been dealt with.