Is there a word for a job that doesn't actually contribute to increasing productivity in a country and even if you make them disappear, it won't change the way people live or the country's economical prosperity for example being a street vendor, a busker, a clergyman who just preaches and talks around and receives money, fortunetellers, or a person who sells cigars along the street (like a vendor). Usually these jobs are frowned upon by economists.
In my native language there is a word for it that its literal translation is a pseudo-job. Is there an English word for this kind of jobs?
Edit: To make the meaning clearer I add an example from a context: I saw a local newspaper headline going like this: "Our skilled labor force now in danger of doing pseudo-jobs." In the article it argues that we cannot provide our skilled experts with job opportunities that they can benefit us most. As a result they start pseudo-jobs like being mourners, vendors, fortune tellers, flyer distributors, etc.
If you want to write this piece of news in English, how would you go?
Best Answer
One problem is that, even if English has a word with the same meaning, that word would not indicate the same group of activities. Many native English speakers would not consider vending or busking to be pseudo-jobs. Street-vending provides convenience in addition to the offered goods. Busking allows a performer to practice his or her craft in addition to exhibiting small-scale entertainment. Even the guy wearing a sandwich board and distributing fliers is participating in the legitimate business of advertising.
Granted, I doubt that most people would say that clergymen benefit the economy. However, I wouldn't even want to consider discussing in a public forum whether clergymen benefit society -- religion can be a contentious and controversial topic, where I live.
All that being said, there is a word in English that you may want to consider for your purpose. The last two concrete examples that you've given are fortune-telling and professional mourning. I'm not very familiar with professional mourning. As an American, I find that such a thing doesn't happen in my culture. However, I am familiar with excessively expensive funerals, with coffins that cost too much and burial plots that cost too much and wakes & memorial services that cost too much. I'm also somewhat familiar with fortune-telling, card reading and tea leaf reading and palm reading and, of course, those that claim an inexplicable and inexorable psychic connection with the dead.
One word that describes both those activities is "scam". A scam is a way to gain money without providing equal value. Many (but not all) scams are illegal. Even those scams which are legal are never prestigious. The economy does not benefit from a scam, and society views any scam as distasteful.
A person who gets his or her primary income from a scam is a scam artist.
It is entirely possible that, in your culture and your locale, a visible majority of street vendors are scam artists, in sharp contrast with the obvious social and economic value that many street vendors offer in my culture and locale.
If you and I can agree that many fortune-tellers take money without providing value (to either the customer or to society), then there's a good chance that "scam" is the word you want.