The Closing Of The Economy

 On Radio 4's "The World At One" they had a discussion about childcare which it was agreed is too expensive. On one side of the discussion they had Nick Pearce from the IPPR who was arguing for having even more highly qualified child minders, who rebutted an argument for deregulation by pointing out:

"The child minders' own professional body says they don't want deregulation, they want high standard professional child minders"

This is of course a fatuous point, all professional bodies oppose deregulation and support credentialising- because that keeps out entrants to the market and enables their members to make more money. If anyone can find a single example of an organisation representing established people in a profession that lobbies for barriers to entry to be loosened then I will tip my hat to them, but I doubt anyone could.

Credentialising and occupational licensing make jobs harder to get without actually improving the standard of service being provided.

The two jobs that I did when I was a student- working as a security guard in various warehouses and offices and on building sites putting up ceilings- both now require the possession of formal qualifications in those fields so that I would not be able to do either job today.

This was only just over a decade ago. Similar barriers to entry have been placed in other lines of work. This of modest importance to current and future students but is a serious barrier for the long term unemployed and for anyone who uses the services of industries that are insulated from competition and innovation in this way.


Update: As proof that quoting the childminder's professional body is a fatuous and moronic argument- Polly Toynbee repeats it today:

The National Childminding Association protests against Truss's deregulation plan: it wants to keep inspections. Nor does it want higher staff-child ratios, saying it fears childminders becoming deprofessionalised