Too many / Too few

I just read an interesting, if flawed, story in New York magazine. Still scratching my head on how I came to be a subscriber, but for the first time since it started showing up in my mailbox I didn’t feel that I was contributing to the demise of more trees and increasing carbon emissions when I flipped the magazine pretty much straight into the recycle bin.

The story is called The Economy of Touch and though it is one in which it appears the author was intend on her thesis and set out to find sources who would corroborate it, I learned something interesting: If the New York mag stats are accurate, there is a proliferation of nail technicians—at least in New York and I would suspect in large US cities. Yet massage therapy is suffering from a distinct shortage of trained professionals in the spa industry worldwide. In spa land, the certification requirements change from state to state and country to country and it is much easier to slip under the radar and work illegally as a nail technician than a bodyworker. This means a lot of naturally skilled but not formally trained and certified bodyworkers are prohibited from working. This is true especially in Asia. There are organizations that are trying to change by setting up foundations.