New condom roles ‘offer job satisfaction’
Who wants to be a condom tester? Is this the best job in the world? There’s no pay – but
successful applicants will receive a free $60 selection of Durex products and will be required to provide the company with honest feedback about the products’ performance.
One of the lucky 200 testers will win a $1000 bonus.
Although there’s no pay, you can bet that Durex will be inundated with the resumes of virile young men, all eager to snag the ‘world’s best job’. If it was any other job, it’s unlikely anyone would give it a second glance – because the pay is pitiful. But being a condom tester has a significant compensating differential – there are other non-monetary rewards that make the low pay seem worthwhile anyway (eg the satisfaction of bragging about the job and other things that I will leave to your imagination). Compensating differentials explain why priests, nuns, teachers and nurses get such low pay – the satisfaction they derive from their jobs compensates for their low wages (okay perhaps I shouldn’t include teachers in there, but let’s just assume teachers really love teaching). I know it’s sinful to compare condom testers to nuns, but hey, I need to make economics interesting 
However, there are a few differences between condom testers and nuns – for one thing the supply of condom testers will always exceed the supply of nuns, because of the nature of the two jobs. Any man* (yeah all of them, since we now have Viagra) can be a condom tester, but not everyone has the strength and fortitude to be a nun.
Do the low wages indicate a lack of demand for condom testers and nuns? For condom testers, I would say demand is pretty low and very elastic. Why? Well, even the CEO of Durex could become a condom tester – they don’t need to hire other people (IMHO this whole condom tester thing is just an elaborate marketing ploy – the latest version of giving out ‘free samples’). Since it’s so easy to find substitutes for condom testers, labour demand elasticity is high and that’s why the pay is so low. But what about nuns? Is there demand for nuns? Well yes – churches and religious orders need nuns to run schools, proselytize, help priests look after the congregation, etc. The elasticity of demand for nuns is very low too – there are few substitutes for nuns (although it is higher than it used to be, as teachers can be hired to run schools and volunteers can do missionary work – but they are still needed to run religious orders). As mentioned before, the supply of nuns is very small and very inelastic – few are willing to give up all worldly pleasures for a life devoted to serving God. So, with inelastic demand and supply, how come nuns’ wages are so low? They don’t need the money, of course. Their transfer earnings (the amount of pay needed to keep them in the job) is very low, thus almost all their pay is economic rent (money over and above transfer earnings – a bonus). Simply put, even if they had to work for free, nuns wouldn’t be doing anything else. They truly are amazing people.
(You could say condom testers would still be having sex even if they weren’t condom testers (hence their transfer earnings is zero and everything is economic rent), but a nun’s work and lifestyle is much harder, which is why I salute them )
However, not all jobs that have low transfer earnings and high economic rent pay a pittance. Take football players, for instance. These people are really crazy about football. They love it, and they’re good at it. All they want to do is play football for a living. It’s all they think they can do. Even if football players were paid as much as nuns, they would still play, because they love the game (same concept as struggling writers and actors really). So why are they paid millions of dollars to play? The answer, IMHO, lies in the differences in productivity. A football player is more productive than a condom tester or a nun, because when he plays, he is watched by millions of fans all over the world (Caveat: We’re talking about the best players in the world here, not third division people). Thanks to the wonders of technology, a football player generates millions of dollars in revenue for sports companies and his club through advertising and sponsorship contracts. He doesn’t necessarily work more than nuns or condom testers, but the fact that he can reach more people increases his labour productivity. A 90-minute match exposes him and whatever brand he’s endorsing on his jersey to millions of fans around the world. How many people can a nun reach in 90 minutes? How many different condoms can a tester try in 90 minutes? You get the picture The higher one’s labour productivity, the higher his wage.
So, what’s the best job in the world? You decide
*Even Stephen Hawking, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease and is almost fully paralyzed, was able to father three children because the disease only affects voluntary muscle. Sorry I couldn’t resist 
