Unemployment? An Issue?

An article by Khimberly Rose L. Calledo of Philippine Nikkei Jin Kai International School, Grade 11 Seijitsu.
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Unemployment doesn’t need to be an issue. It can be solved and abolished if we do something about it.

“But it’s the government’s fault! What they’re giving isn’t enough!”

This statement is always thrown around whenever people talk about unemployment. Still, we all know the real reason. We simply refuse to admit it. 

After searching countless websites, after reading various articles, I began to wonder… Is unemployment really the problem? Is the lack of job vacancy the problem? Or is it the standards the companies set for the employees that they want to hire?

According to Heather Long, over half of small business owners in America say there are "few or no qualified applicants" for the jobs they have open right now, according to the latest National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Survey released hours before the Labor Department said there was a record number of job openings (Long, 2017).  That means that even though the government or a few companies would say that they have job openings or they are in need of labor, they will not employ anyone if they think that nobody fits in their standards. But they are not to blame. You cannot expect a company to hire somebody out of pity.

Companies want skill. Not everyone has the skills. What does the government do to solve this problem?  Pretty easy. The government provides programs like the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority or, in short, TESDA. 

I’m sure that everyone, at least once in their life, has seen the TESDA commercials. There were people thanking the TESDA for their help and all. Any normal jobless person would look at these commercials and say “I want to try that!”. But not everyone is like that. To be honest, it’s more believable if you say that that kind of person is kind of rare nowadays. Especially since a lot of people know that the government will always try to help them.

According to American Enterprise scholar Richard Vedder, the American government had decided to reduce the incentives to the employed. That means no more food stamps, no more Social Security disability payments, no more extended unemployment benefits, and no more Pell Grants. Pell Grants was especially helpful since it helps people go to college when they should be looking for work.

To prove another point, that the real problem are the people and not the government, I would like to share what I have read in another article. As stated by Ruth Mayhew, an economy that's spiraling downward or volatile markets always can affect unemployment, because there just aren't enough jobs in certain fields for people who want them. But sometimes the economy, business trade and demand and similar factors don't always explain why some people can't find work. Many of the reasons have to do with their work readiness, job skills, training, employer bias and job-search techniques.

Work readiness refers to whether the job seeker is literate enough to complete an employment application or understands what's appropriate attire and language for an interview.

Job skills are an absolute must since technology has taken over a lot of jobs nowadays. Skilled phone operators can easily lose their jobs because a computer can replace them. This is why people should work harder to gain practical working skills in order for them to be employed.

Employer bias is admittedly hard to counter, especially if you have a criminal record. No one can deny that a lot of countries have a broad number of people who have criminal records. Let’s say that someone with a record wants to get a job. He has the skills and he has what it takes. A company would be happy to take him in, but knowing he has a criminal record, they would surely doubt his skills and the worker himself.

An interview is a two-way conversation where the interviewer and interviewee have an opportunity to determine whether the job and the company are a good fit for both of them. In part, the hiring manager is obligated to convince the candidate why the company is a good place to work. Job seekers who lack confidence or good interview skills don't make favorable impressions on hiring managers. Their lack of confidence and salesmanship often don't lead to job offers.

Many people stay unemployed because they don't commit to a diligent job search and have a narrowly focused and thin-skinned approach to looking for work. They submit one or two resumes, get an interview and pray for that one interview to be "the one" that gets the job. They focus solely on that one interview, and when they don't get the job, they're discouraged and their job search stalls.\

In this article, I am not telling you that unemployment is not a problem. I am telling you that unemployment is just an effect of a problem that we need to solve. And that problem is none other than the people. People who are unmotivated, unwilling to try, and unable to see that they need to change.

I have said earlier that unemployment is not the main problem. Nevertheless, it still is a problem.  An international problem. The question is, what can we do to fix it?

A solution that I would like to propose would be to increase the working incentives. It is pretty easy if you stop and think about it. If a student is unmotivated, what do you do? You offer something that would make them want it. In that way, not only do they gain motivation to do their job right, they gain something useful that would most likely help them in the near future.

Another solution would be reducing the age of retirement and giving people the freedom to choose whether they want to retire when they reach this certain age or not. I they do want to continue then, they must still be able to prove that they are qualified for the job. If they do not then, they are allowed to.

Unemployment doesn’t have to be an issue. It can be solved and abolished if we do something about it.

REFERENCES:

https://www.michaeljournal.org/articles/social-credit/item/there-is-no-unemployment-problem-there-is-a-dividend-problem

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/08/there-are-7-million-unemployed-and-6-2-million-job-openings-whats-the-problem/?noredirect=on

https://opentextbc.ca/principlesofeconomics/chapter/32-3-causes-of-unemployment-around-the-world/

http://www.numbernomics.com/nomicsnotes/?p=7268

https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-6385766-breaking-unemployment

https://gawker.com/5976485/is-laziness-the-cause-of-unemployment 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NGnaD0fUQM

https://www.thebalance.com/unemployment-solutions-3306211

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_unemployment_rate

https://work.chron.com/5-reasons-people-stay-unemployed-23561.html

https://content.wisestep.com/solve-unemployment-country-best-tips/