When Americans talk today about the jobs this economy has lost, they are speaking specifically with regard to layoffs and cutbacks that add to unemployment. The economy is expected to begin adding more jobs than it loses within the next several months.

Unfortunately, even after we begin adding jobs once again, we will still talk about “lost jobs” in a different sense. Instead of discussing actual growth in unemployment, we will look back nostalgically on the job market that once existed. When workers begin re-entering the workforce, they are going to find that in many cases the positions they once held are simply not around anymore.

According to The Wall Street Journal, some jobs that existed in large numbers before the recession will be as rare as typewriter repairmen and streetcar operators when all is said and done.

It is still debatable whether or not this economy will actually see a “recovery” on the job market. As of yet there has been little progress. We are no longer crashing at a rate of 600,000 lost jobs per month; but in an economy that needs to create 100,000 jobs each month to match population growth the mere “stabilization” isn’t good enough.

The construction industry used to create hundreds of thousands of jobs around the country. Home construction in particular was perhaps the largest single segment of that economic sector,. The vast majority of its pre-recession boom will likely never return. The construction sector has lost 1.6 million jobs since the beginning of the recession – one-fifth of the total recessionary job losses.

Putting all our eggs in the home construction “basket” was unhealthy and led to instability, but it was the only option for a huge proportion of the labor market.

On the higher end of the employment spectrum, there were once thousands of well-paying middle positions at financial institutions, brokerages, mortgage agencies, banks, and other similar companies. The finance sector was over-inflated by a combination of Reagan era leftovers and new introductions during the Bush administration.

In the best circumstances, we would not want it to return the old business model. In the most realistic circumstances, the industry could not return to previous levels even if it wanted to.

Technological advances have also likely wiped out large pieces of employment. Just as robotic assistants greatly reduced the number of laborers needed to manufacture a car or piece of machinery, new advances in the Digital Age have made many niche positions obsolete. For example, millions of Americans now buy imported digital printers and produce photo shop quality prints in seconds, erasing the need for the once customary trip to a local developer. The fact that the product is likely imported takes away the need to employ an American to assemble it.

It is hard to believe that the American labor market was over-inflated during the height of our economic boom, particularly when we consider that even at our peak employment growth was unable to match population growth. However, that is the case.

The world’s largest economy subsists largely on imported goods, boosting employment overseas and sapping employment at home. In an economy where a huge amount of shoes, clothes, cars and electronics are made overseas we have alleviated the need for millions of jobs. The most profitable sector in the economy, finance, has proven able to reach record profits despite operating with “skeleton crews” staffing its offices.

In essence, decades of economic mismanagement, coupled with the continuation of bad policies and heavy doses of recession-induced cutbacks have permanently altered the American labor market. For most American workers, these changes will not be beneficial.

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