How can one reconcile your hypothesis with the recent employment statistics: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210409/dq210...
There is a clear uptake from record unemployment.
Having a good work in your life is still more fulfilling than just leisure for most people, on top of that, you can afford more things. Yes, shitty jobs have trouble finding people. I personally see that not as a downside, but rather an upside of the whole thing.
Work can provide meaning in various ways (care for colleagues, creative expression, a 'goal' to work towards, etc.) and the idea of having more money can be somewhat meaningful, of course (especially if you really need it!).
But there are tons of other meaningful and fulfilling things a person can do with their time, and I'm willing to bet that most people would prefer most of those over having to do 'stuff' for a 'boss/manager' in a hierarchical organization that might (in part) not provide much meaning other than making money for them and hopefully enough for yourself.
Hobbies are what we do for ourselves.
We can widen the definition of work to be far more inclusive, and then structure a program to compensate people for doing that work http://www.jobguarantee.org/
And since others do so much for me, it's only fair that I do something for them.
Nowadays, we have more productivity as a species if we do specific labor instead in order to feed ourselves, but the premise is the same. No work = no eat (at least until you have enough savings/investments to afford not to work). At least until theoretically automation takes all of the jobs.
Anyways, just clearing that up. I agree that the recipe to happiness probably includes a hefty dose of 'what we do for others'. I don't think I've met a person who was truly happy just slacking off and doing things just for themselves.
When it's about 'creative expression' it's really about oneself.
If you fill up gas in cars all day, your friend lays brick, someone else logs and mills, another frames ... then that's us working together to create warm homes.
So if we can do that without individuals siphoning off the top (or bottom) it works.
Much has been said about how much of a dead end this jobs are but I’d like to reiterate how incredibly difficult it is when you have no time to improve your lot in life. There’s so many statistics about how poverty and poverty jobs are a trap that most never escape in the US compared to other developed countries.