A Times reporter gets part of it right

The US has created "an estimated 5.8 million new ones in just five years, according to a recent Labor Department report. The government’s household employment survey showed a gain of 437,000 jobs in October alone. Unemployment that month fell to just 4.4 percent, a 5½-year low. Jobs are so abundant that investors are worried that the Federal Reserve may delay making interest rate cuts, lest inflation revive. The concern is that all these new jobs may lead employers to bid up wages, heaven forbid. There are so many jobs, in fact, that we can’t fill them all ourselves.

“increased use of offshore resources may impact up to 1.47 million general and administrative jobs,” the Organization for International Investment, a business group representing American units of foreign companies, says that such domestic subsidiaries employ 5.4 million people in this country. In all likelihood, that total will grow.

SO the real issue isn’t saving jobs. It’s helping those whose skills suddenly become obsolete to adjust to the new world around them. The big new job gains, for example, mask continuing job losses in manufacturing as well as recent declines in construction employment, meaning more bad news for people who work with their hands. That, in turn, suggests more income inequality ahead. Washington, despite its recent track record of bungling on so many fronts, will need to play a role in helping these people and their communities adjust, and unfortunately that’s one job we can’t easily send offshore.