Layoff Trends: NYT vs. WSJ

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"What is a 'professional'?"

As I understand it, there are a limited number of “professions” in the technical sense.

They are defined by a combination of a standard curriculum that makes up their required professional degree and regulation by a professional body that provides examinations and require a license to practice upon completion of the degree (or completion of the degree combined with a specified number of years of experience in the field).

The classic example of this would be the law and the bar association, but others include medicine and dentistry or architecture which requires a state by state license to sign drawings.

The idea is that if you are studying medicine for example you will be required to study the same material in a core curriculum at any med school across the country.

I agree with you. As a designer not a licensed architect I was often put off by this use of the word “professional” before I was corrected and learned its actual meaning.

It is tricky because the word “professional” is used to describe just about anyone who is paid to do a job. Of course I still consider myself a design professional even though design my area of design is not technically a “profession”.

Hope this helps.

LS of NY @ Mar 06, 2009 14:03:08 PM

The first question I've always had about this sort of thing is, "What is a 'professional'?" You're a professional journalist; I'm a professional computer scientist; someone else may be a professional bricklayer or a professional retail sales rep. The WSJ clearly makes a distinction between lawyers, doctors, and others of their class as "professionals", and others of a lesser class, a distinction that I find offensive and unnecessary.

But to the point: in my industry -- computer and information technology -- workforce reductions have, for the last fifteen or twenty years, affected us. The "layoffs" have included many "professionals" with college degrees, with PhDs, with whatever schooling you might consider. The current round is no different, as I see it from here. We might not be affected as much as, say, construction workers. But we're affected now, as before.

Barry Leiba of NY @ Mar 04, 2009 16:56:34 PM

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