This is an economics blog, and your pie maker can't help piling into the great flood of "jobs" posts on other econ blogs. Despite all the bits shifted (as opposed to ink spilled), there is something unique to say.
If you're wondering about why the US, and indeed much of the developed world's, employment picture and economic growth looks so bleak, ask yourself this question: What do you want, can afford, but cannot find?
Odds are good that list is pretty small for most people. For your pie maker, the only example he can think of involves his preferred brand of bike tire. That being practically a commodity part, he will be trying a new brand, and thus rewarding a different set of employees and investors, but his net outlay will remain about the same. Utilities service, in particular wireline phone, TV and internet, is the only service your pie maker can think of off-hand that the average consumer has to wait for, but these are generally provided by monopolies with strong regulatory reasons to avoid pushing marginal profits.
In the US, and presumably elsewhere, the people who encounter this problem most often are entrepreneurs who want to expand what people want to include their new, hopefully better, product or service. They rely, largely, on credit issued by investors who think people will want these things, and up until 2008, on credit issued to consumers to expand the "can afford" criteria above.
Today, "simple(r) living" has become something of a virtue of necessity, shortening the list of what people want. Even with interest rates at historic lows, few enough investors are willing to expand consumer credit enough to increase the "can afford" category. Finally, our economy is keeping up with demand with up to 16% of the workforce sitting idle (your pie maker prefers U6, which includes "discouraged" workers). What are we to do?
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