Why I'm Screwed

Because of this business and employment news.

Guess who fits into the category with the largest decrease in employment?  Me!!!  And that field's pretty darn large - here's how it's described:

And last but not least, the arts or “creative” category, as I call it, includes designers, actors, artists, athletes, dancers, musicians, reporters, editors, writers, photographers, and everyone else that goes along with that. (If you want to see a full list for 2008, go to here).

What unites all of these groups is that they are all producers of “intangible investments.” That is, engineers, scientists, computer software engineers, artists, designers, and so forth all create long-lived intellectual property which has the potential to contribute to the economy. This includes new software programs, new products, new pieces of art and so forth. Writers produce written works of various degrees of usefulness, but in the aggregate are beneficial.

With the exception of software, the government statistics for GDP pick up very little of these intangible investments. That is, they pick up the part of spending which supports current consumption, but not the part which benefits the future.

shocking, no? And here's the graph of Creative employment:

(Hat tip via Playgoer, via Richard Florida)