Just explained that creating employment is not of itself ' productive ' if what you use the employment to create is not useful in itself . Deciding to shift thousands of tons of earth from one point to another and back again creates employment . Is it useful or productive ? Obviously not . You could create employment by paying people to write down the shape of every cloud they see . Is it productive ? Again , obviously not . We could pay people to empty puddles when it rained , and we ' d have drier streets and create employment . We could achieve the same by building better drains . One of these is productive , one is not even though the one that is not creates more , and more lasting , employment . But a country that expends money and employment on emptying puddles rather than building drains is very clearly wrong in the head .