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That makes sense when you consider the public service to include police officers, fire fighters, nurses, social workers and of course teachers – jobs our society could never do without.
In the private sector, you might presume those who hold management positions would be more inclined to admit their position serves little societal purpose. Not so. There really wasn’t any difference at all when managers’ perceptions of social utility were compared to those of front-line employees.
But there were definite differences among professions such as sales, marketing, public relations, finance and brokerage, all of which battled it out for the wooden spoon in terms of the social benefits they produce. Which brings to mind comedian Bill Hicks who once described marketers and advertisers as “Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage”; “the ruiners of all things good”.
The predictable consequences of lower job satisfaction and diminished pride were found to occur even when highly prized workplace advantages, such as career advancement and job security, were present. Hence why it’s “more likely [these employees] will try to find another job within the next 12 months”.
The scholars have identified five causes of this occupational futility.
One is that some of us are stuck in jobs we find harmful to society. While the researchers point their fingers at the banking and insurance industries, other culpable outfits also include the tobacco and gambling sectors.
A second reason is that some of us are unable to escape the mundane nature of our work. It’s too repetitive and mechanical to ever be meaningful. Top of the list are jobs like machine operators, assemblers, labourers and transport workers.
The third cause is management, since they’re the ones who create these jobs and subsequently determine how they should be carried out. Their poor decisions, therefore, are frequently to blame.
Fourth on the list is the government. Regulations in some industries may prevent the letting-go of personnel, and so people are retained without much to do. Technology and the market have moved on. They clearly haven’t.
The final factor is labour hoarding, which occurs during economic downturns. That's when organisations hold on to their employees in anticipation of better times even though they may not have enough work for them to perform.
Of those five, the scholars firmly believe there’s more evidence to suggest that harmful, repetitive and preserved jobs (i.e. causes one, two and five) play a much greater role in perpetuating job uselessness than do managers and government.
In any case, while a useless job is not ideal, it has to be better than no job at all, right? Or not?