Unemployed – Who stole your job?

You are currently unemployed and wonder who stole your job.  You are not the first one who are unemployed, there are millions of people in our world who don’t have a job.  You might not understand why that is the case and why jobs are so hard to find.  They tell you that it is because of the economy is no good and companies are struggling to make money.

The reason I want to write this post is to tell you the real reasons why there are not enough jobs for everyone.  Also, I will give you suggestions on how you can find work.

We live in a commercial world.  Companies are created to make money, right?  That is true, but there are certain limit on how much money a company can make. It is easier to explain to you by an example.  For example, I have a company which is making $1,000,000 per year.  As a owner, I want to make more money next year such as $1,200,000 next year.  What should I do?

There are several ways to achieve my goal.

1. Sell more products.
2. Cut production cost.
3. Cut the number of staff.
4. Increase staff productivity.
5. Expand my operation.

As you can see, cutting the number of staff is one of the ways to make more money.  Why I don’t try to sell more products or expand operations?  Yes, I would like to try but they’re harder to do.  Try to sell more product means that I have to be more active and also expand my operation means that I will have to spend more money.  Spending more money is risky, if I failed to achieve my goal then I will lose money.  Nobody like losing money.

Therefore, I will take the easiest path, which is cutting the number of staff and make the rest of the other employees work harder.  I don’t need to invest money and it is super easy to do.  That is why most company will start to reduce staff level when they are not making enough money.

That is the normal thing to do.  Isn’t it?

If you think so, then you are wrong.  Why you are wrong?

Companies that do this are very short-sighted.  They might be able to achieve their goal in a short-term but in the long run, it is not good for the company and also not good for the community.  The reasons are:-

• When they reduce staff, the company will lose experience people.  If business picks up again then they will have to re-hire new people, and they need to spend money and time to train new people who don’t have experience.  It will cost the company time and money.
• The productivity of staff can increase, but only to certain level.  Employees cannot work to 120% all the time.  If they are sick or they leave their job due to stress, then the company will lose money.
• When the number of staff is not enough, companies will lose sales because of bad service to customers.  Just as an example, have you ever walked in a shop and no one came to serve you – as a result you walked out.  I have done that many time myself.  If I don’t get good service, I go somewhere else.

Therefore, companies that cut staff all the time tends to do worse gradually.  I called it slow suicide – they are killing their own company slowly.

But if they cannot cut staff, then how are they going to make more money if they don’t invest to sell more product or expand their operation.  Have you ever think that – why do they want more money?  How could they make more money when the economy is bad?

What they should consider is when the economic is bad, they earn less.  Then when the economy gets better then they will make more money.  It is always business cycle, because everything go up and down.  Just like the seasons – spring, summer, fall, winter.  Also, the tides of the sea and there are many, many examples of cycles we knew within our world.  You cannot say, I just want summer and no other seasons and that is not possible.  These companies who always want more is irrational. There is no such thing as a always increasing business and also vice versa.  Some called it GREED.

When they accept a decrease in sale in certain year and do not reduce the number of staff, no one will lose jobs.  As the world population increase, there will be more jobs created and everyone will have employment.  So as their sales figure, slowly and gradually.  This is a long-term thinking.

To give you another example of the bad results of their short-term thinking.

I will use another example.  I have a company in a town of 2000 people and I have 200 people working for me.  Because I want to make more money as previously, I reduced my staff by 50 people.  (I thought I was a genius who can come up with this brilliant idea.)  I was very happy because I cut my spending and at the end of the year, I achieved my goal.  I don’t care about those who lose jobs, this is a cruel world and I cannot take care of everyone.  Other companies saw what I did and they followed and reduced the number of employees.  Suddenly, 500 people lost their jobs.

What do you think will happen in this town?

The economy in this town suddenly turn bad.  This is no surprise, when you lose your job would you be able to spend money as before?  Of course not.  Therefore, business suddenly went down and as a result business becomes bad.  As for me, I see that business is decreasing, without knowing what caused it, I reduced my staff level more.  At the end, there is a financial depression.

That is what is happening in our world and most business people don’t know what is going on.  This is the cause of our unemployment problem – cause and effect.  They don’t understand this business cycle.  Reducing staff level should be the last thing they do because there are other problems too when unemployment is high.  There will be more crime and more social problems.

If I got robbed in my house and injured because someone lost their job, their family, their house and their dignity.  I would never guessed that I was the one who caused it at the first place.

If you are a business owner, think about what I just told you.  Everyone of us has a social responsibility.  It is okay to make money, but try not to hurt other people while trying to make more money.  If you are a employee, now you know the reason.  You can tell other people and make them understand what is going on.

So, if you are unemployed. How could you find job?

There are lots of things that you could do.  Examples:-

• learn a new skill
• talk to other people
• search online
• move

The most useful tool is your brain.  What can you do?  What do you do best?

I learned something interesting a few days ago.  There was a Pakistani woman who do online job for a living.  She might be living in a village where there is no other job, but she learned a new skill and is able to support her family.  She probably makes more money than other women who do labour jobs in the same village.  This is thinking outside the square.  Don’t let your circumstances dictate what you can or cannot do.

Cheers,

MisterWailor