Introducing the Job Safety Index (JSI)
“GDP Grows. Jobs Disappear. That’s Why We Need the Job Safety Index (JSI).”
Every country in the world obsessively tracks GDP. Economists debate unemployment rates. Policymakers set inflation targets. But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
👉 None of these metrics tell us if people’s jobs are actually safe.
An economy can boom, stock markets can rise, and yet workers live in fear of layoffs, automation, or gigification. That’s the blind spot in modern economics. And it’s costing us billions in lost productivity, declining trust, and broken social contracts.
It’s time for a new metric.
It’s time for the Job Safety Index (JSI).
Why GDP Isn’t Enough
GDP tells us how much we’re producing. Unemployment tells us how many people have jobs. But neither says anything about the stability, resilience, or future-readiness of those jobs.
A country can have 5% unemployment but still have most workers trapped in unstable gig work.
A booming GDP can mask industries where jobs are being automated away faster than new ones are created.
“Employment” doesn’t equal employability when skills are obsolete.
In short: we’ve been measuring growth, not security.
The JSI Formula
The Job Safety Index is designed to fix this. It pulls together public, verifiable metrics from trusted global institutions—ILO, World Bank, OECD, IMF—and distills them into one score: How safe are jobs in this economy, sector, or company?
Key Inputs:
Employment stability → layoffs, tenure data.
Wage resilience → are incomes stable or volatile?
Automation risk → exposure to AI, robotics, digitization.
Re-skilling adoption → % of workforce engaged in continuous learning.
Social protections → unemployment coverage, worker benefits.
Together, these inputs create a Job Safety Index score that can be tracked like GDP or inflation.
Why JSI Matters Now
For Policymakers: JSI reveals the health of jobs—not just the economy. It’s a roadmap for where to invest in upskilling, protections, and innovation.
For Employers: JSI benchmarks industries and companies. Boards can see if their workforce is at risk of obsolescence.
For Workers: JSI provides transparency. They can demand safer, future-proof jobs and know which industries are at risk.
For Investors: A company’s JSI score can signal resilience—high JSI = sustainable workforce, low JSI = hidden risk.
“GDP measures growth. JSI measures survival.”
The Impact of JSI
Imagine a world where:
Governments publish quarterly JSI scores alongside GDP.
Companies disclose JSI ratings in annual reports.
Universities use JSI data to prepare graduates for the right industries.
Workers choose careers not just by salary, but by safety.
This isn’t just another index. It’s the missing piece of the future of work puzzle.
Why Me, Why Now
As the CEO of Job Ready, I’ve seen firsthand how training budgets are wasted when they don’t lead to measurable readiness. The same is true at the macro level: billions in GDP growth mean nothing if workers’ livelihoods aren’t secure.
That’s why I’m launching the Job Safety Index (JSI).
To shine a light where policymakers and economists have been blind.
To make job safety measurable, comparable, and improvable.
To give every nation, company, and worker a score they can track and demand better from.
The world needs more than GDP headlines and unemployment charts. It needs a Job Safety Index that answers the only question that really matters:
👉 “Are our jobs safe?”
This is the number I believe every government should publish, every company should track, and every worker should care about.
The JSI isn’t just an index. It’s a movement.
And this is where it begins.
