Joblessness Is A Farce
Opinion
Key Points:
Work doesn’t have to be paid just make sure you are doing something productive.
The illusion of a safety net keeps people working routinely for a long period up to 35+ years.
Enterprising is the main solution to a state of joblessness.
“No one is jobless because there are always multiple productive tasks to do per time.”
The pandemic has effectively stamped this thought pattern on our hearts as students and workers were called to a halt on their usual work processes to a remote system. This life-impacting occurrence has taken at least a year to clear up.
Developed countries such as the US, UK, Canada, and countries in the EU harnessed the power of technology to facilitate study from home. Many students in developing countries such as Nigeria, Uganda, and some Asian countries didn’t have equal access to technological gear and online learning models.
For workers, there was a better parallel in working from home in both developed and developing countries. Yet, several workers lost their office jobs in both worlds. This made them easily classified as jobless when in fact they are not.
Through the years and more recently, the pandemic period, of making the bold claims about the facade of joblessness, some of our team members held abusive jobs that paid paltry sums and offered no credits for our creative work as fulltime workers and freelancers.
When our cashflow from these jobs was reduced or lost during the pandemic, we had a firsthand experience of joblessness. Then, we had a refresher on our thoughts on a lack of joblessness.
Why People Claim To Be Jobless…
Workers have been focused on the seeming realities of unemployment and job loss due to the emphasis placed on high unemployment rates by nations, organizations, and societies. This has made too many people have a glorified view of the seeming impossibilities they are up against in the labour market.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic did nothing to ease the preexisting fears of corporate workers and job seekers. In the US alone, the unemployment rate soared to an all-time high of 14.70% during the pandemic.
Let’s Look Deeper…
An inquisition into how unemployment metrics are measured shows that they don’t include agricultural farm payrolls and self-employed individuals.
Hence, only those within governmental and corporate jobs account for unemployment rates leaving out a huge proportion of gainfully employed workers, including hobbyists, freelancers, and small-scale entrepreneurs. This means unemployment rates have never been a true depiction of the state of unemployment locally and globally.
Why Workers Love Corporate Jobs…
Corporate jobs guarantee some job security, allowing employees to take part in a social safety net consisting of paid leaves, health benefits, and unemployment insurances.
Unemployment insurance is a key safety net component that protects employees who have lost their jobs, excluding job termination due to cause, and voluntary job quitting.
These payments are made from payroll taxes deducted by the government from employers and can last up to 26 weeks after a job loss depending on your state in the US. Contrarily, in developing countries, you’ll be lucky if your employer gives you a fair secession fee and pension after a job loss.
How Work Structures Are Built To Keep You In An Endless Loop…
Most jobs are systematically structured such that workers can only hope to rise through an organizational hierarchy for up to 35 years.
Duration of working life — statistics — Statistics Explained (europa.eu)
This work system creates poor work ethics which becomes evident as these workers grow too lazy to marshal themselves to work without job allocation and supervision. Inadvertently, when such workers are dismissed, they make unemployment claims.
The “Jobless” Lot…
The unaccounted group of self-employers including hobbyists, freelancers, creatives, and small business owners fall in the “jobless’ category.
Instead of seeking a safety net, they hold different priorities at heart. They want to break even and gradually expand their individual business operations. This leaves them working extra hours achieving greater productivity than those in corporate jobs.
The jobless lot tend to be more resilient in the face of a business downturn. They are never without ‘work’ because when new projects aren’t forthcoming, they focus on prospecting and actively learning new skills to improve their enterprise.
The Truth About Joblessness…
There are always a ton of other things to do outside of a paid job or a structured school system. For perspective, you are home on a weekend without spillovers from your workplace or school. You’ll likely be busy with one house chore or the other if you choose not to wind up kicking your legs up in the air, reading a book in a reclining chair, and ultimately sleeping off.
Before you argue that none of those house chores is a job, remember that the simple definition of a job is ‘a task.’ A further qualification of a job makes it ‘paid’. At which point, it is defined as
‘an economic role for which a person is paid.’
Unintuitively, many people focus solely on paid jobs and not on the basic act of working on a task, skillset, personal projects, and business ideas. This skewed view on employment and the need to provide for life’s necessities creates the basis for employed and unemployed claims.
Therefore, the need to keep a job and the whole idea of joblessness is only a mental assent to your need to be allocated work, given deadlines, supervised, and ultimately get paid.
Enterprising Is the Solution…
Men have been working long before the establishment of corporations and civil service. Consequently, as these structured work systems continue to erode, men must find new ways to work.
Enterprising can help people become engaged in multiple productive endeavours outside of a paid job against the illusion of joblessness.
The great recession of 2008 showed that entrepreneurship can be spurred by unemployment and the perception of bleak employment possibilities. When more than 8.8 million jobs were lost in the US alone it drove more people to start businesses.
Students can use some of the free time to learn new skills instead of waiting for the pandemic to end.
Takeaway…
The idea of joblessness is a farce geared by a lack of motivation to work without supervision. This leaves us as individuals who can’t work except there is a paid job. Some even say, “If I am not getting paid, I am not working.” This terrible thought pattern proves to be precarious for young people and creatives who need to build a resume and portfolio in their free or jobless phases.
The pandemic has offered us a golden opportunity to get on with personal projects, training, and reading. What is standing between you and a successful work endeavour is the lack of motivation to keep improving yourself with or without pay.
Writing this account from an erstwhile temporary state of joblessness allowed me to be in touch with the harsh realities and unrealities of joblessness. I wrote this article to convey the role you play in your acclaimed state of joblessness.
