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Friday, February 27, 2004

Nailbiting

Henry Farrell of the powerful Crooked Timber collective writes in with a word about Virginia Postrel . . . and what appears to be her obsession with nail shops.  It seems that I was quite wrong to suggest, back on Tuesday, that Ms. Postrel came up with her “prettier jobs picture” argument suddenly and cavalierly.  No, she’s been making this argument for the better part of a decade now.  Check out “The Nail File:  The economic meaning of manicures,” from a 1997 issue of Reason magazine:

[W]ith all due respect to Silicon Valley, one of my favorite places, that’s not all there is to the U.S. economy. So I would like to add another California-based growth industry to our set of touchstones, one that captures most major trends in American economic life: nail salons.

Twenty years ago, manicurists mostly worked in obscure corners of hair salons or catered to the wealthy. Cher got her nails done; the rest of us did not. Today, free-standing nail salons dot the commercial blocks and strip malls of cities from Southern California to South Carolina. Nails magazine pegs the market at $6 billion in 1996 for salon services alone, up from $5.2 billion a year earlier. About 239,000 people work as “licensed nail technicians.” (By way of comparison, the Business Software Alliance counts about three times as many people employed in the software industry.)

That’s the industry hidden in plain sight. There’s also the business you don’t see as you walk down the street: the manufacturers and distributors that supply the salons. Nailpro, another trade magazine, lists nearly 400 manufacturers in its 1997 Gold Book directory. These companies make everything from polishes, nippers, and acrylic nail-sculpting compounds to manicure tables, polish racks, and toeless pedicure socks. Says Nailpro Executive Editor Linda Lewis, with little exaggeration, “Everything you see in that Gold Book was developed over the last 20 years.” Nail salons aren’t the biggest business in America, but they’re a growth industry that sprang up without much notice.

The first lesson they teach is: Take government statistics with a shaker of salt. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will tell you that “manicurist” is a fast-growing profession-- impressively so for a job the BLS didn’t even track in 1979. It claims there are 35,000 manicurists, a number it projects will grow to 55,000 by 2005. Now this is a business that supports three trade magazines, including Saigon Nails in Vietnamese; Nails alone has a circulation of 55,000. It is also a licensed occupation in all but a few states, and the licensing boards track active nail techs, which is where that 239,000 figure comes from. The BLS head counters have misplaced an awesome number of jobs. If they can be that wrong about licensed manicurists, imagine what they can do with gardeners, car washers, or nonunion construction workers.

The first lesson this teaches is:  Don’t read Ms. Postrel on the economy unless you are fully immersed in a great salt lake. 

Posted by Michael on 02/27 at 02:32 AM
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