The problem
There is limited employment opportunities.
Trends supporting this view
High unemployment in under-developed and developing nations
While all nations will have some form of unemployment, the most often cited locations on the planet where the above claim seems to hold true are in the third-world countries and most developing nationst. The prime reasons for this are due to the high human populations and limited education and experience (with much of the population being young), even if people are happy to accept temporary or part-time work.
On the other hand, when we turn our attention to developed nations, business professionals and government tend to argue the opposite. Generally, if people are willing to accept any kind of job, then there is plenty of work to be had, such as fruit picking, mining, and, of course, a personal favourite of R-wing governments — joining the Defence forces. Indeed, the general consensus among the authorities is that there is plenty of employment if you are willing to go for the part-time and temporary jobs on offer, and those that don't require much thinking or finding creative or original solutions to current problems in the economy.
Not regularly discussed, or so it seems, is the question of full-time and permanent employment. As most people would prefer to earn a slightly higher income of a reliable nature so they can go beyond covering the costs of food, clothing and pay rent, we find more meaningful and sufficiently paid employment opportunities are actually quite limited. And what permanent and full-time jobs are available often requires students and job seekers to spend money or go into debt to afford the cost of training for new skills and knowledge and gain on-the-job experience. Because of this subtlety in the definition for employment, the true unemployment level for people seeking full-time permanent work is much higher than is reported publicly by government-run job agencies.
If this observation is true, then the view that employment is limited when looking at permanent and full-time jobs where the financially-disadvantaged groups can't gain training and education appears to be the same as in third-world and developing nations.
Governments prefer not to spend money training people
This may explain why some governments are prepared to bring into the country overseas employees to fill certain jobs because it presumably costs too much to train people living locally. Since many skilled people from other countries do not receive a high wage and are already highly educated and skilled, any reasonably well-skilled overseas job seeker can save the government lots of money in training. Just bring them in and let them do the work at little or no cost to the government.
Industry leaders will naturally welcome any move from the government to increase numbers of workers no matter where they come from. What is more important is maintaining the economy by allowing businesses to hire skilled workers in order to meet the high consumer demands for products and services both nationally and internationally as well as creating a high enough profit for the business owners and CEOs.
R-wing governments (e.g. Australian Federal (Howard) Government) are particularly notorious in reducing costs when it comes to training local people to fill job vacancies. This might be because most jobs are short-term and there is every likelihood more money will have to be spent to re-train people to perform other types of jobs. So the simplest solution is to bring in people from overseas with the skills already there or can learn very quickly to fill in any gaps in the skills and knowledge base. Of course, these governments will refute any cost-savings practice when bringing in and employing already-trained overseas workers saying this is a view politically motivated by the opposition party on the grounds it hates migrants. Funny that considering R-wing governments are also the ones to lock up migrants in detention centres for years at a time before a decision from DIMA immigration officers finally arrives. If just a fraction of the money spent on housing, feeding and keeping a watch on these so-called illegal asylum seekers in detention centres for this period of time could be directed to providing quality education and developing skills, how many of these migrants could already be working in Australia or other developed nations?
Or if the cost issue of providing education and training to local job seekers or people in detention centres by government and business leaders is too difficult to argue convincingly to the nation's people, these same leaders will argue it is really a question of labour shortages rather than skill shortages. For example, in Australia, the Federal (Howard) Government had intended to bring in 20,000 skilled and semi-skilled people from overseas to fill the skill shortages in areas such as hairdressing, cooks and so on. But the fruit growers in some Australian towns say it is more a labour shortage.
As Steve Balzary, director of employment and training at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a strong supporter of the Government's aim to import overseas workers said:
"This is not about skills shortages; it's about labour shortages." (Kerr, Joseph & Thompson, Matthew. British gain most from visa changes: The Sydney Morning Herald. 16-17 April 2005, p.10.)
It is almost like the leaders are claiming the population in, say, Australia, is not high enough. So why are there unemployed people in Australia? And why aren't these people being attracted into areas of so-called labour shortages (which one must assume relate to jobs such as fruit picking and cleaning work), assuming this is the reason for bringing in 20,000 overseas workers into the country? Perhaps it comes back down to the age-old question of getting reasonable pay and conditions or else provide more stable and "permanent" jobs (as needed to solve the government's problem of the ageing population through effective build up of superannuation funds), which is necessary in order to find enough money to make the cost of living in Australia seem vaguely affordable.
Let us put it this way: how many people feel comfortable in knowing they will retire with financial security while working as a temporary low-paid cleaner or fruit picker?
Add to the woes for Australian workers are the cost of living. Statistics are showing the cost of living in Australia is higher than the United States and Europe, let alone the developing nations.
Maybe this is the reason why the Australian government sees the attractiveness of overseas workers and the workers themselves from developing nations are thrilled to work in Australia on a temporary basis because they know the pay and conditions are going to be better than in their own country, and the government can save money. And once the workers can earn enough money from their temporary Australian jobs, they realise how rich they are on their return home, living a much more comfortable life for longer periods of time. It is all because the cost of living is much lower in developing nations such as India, China and Vietnam than in Australia.
If one ever needs evidence of this, just download Nike's 108-page report available from its web site admitting abuses and poor conditions of its overseas workers. In what is considered the most comprehensive picture yet of the conditions overseas workers in China, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam and other Asian countries have to endure in the factories making footwear for Nike for the little pay they receive, workers are being forced to work overtime, have restricted access to water, and rarely able to have short breaks until work finishes.
The report comes after Nike paid US$1.5 million (A$1.95 million) to settle allegations of false claims by the company, saying the workers were treated well when in fact evidence was found on the contrary.
The report also admits the problem is widespread. It literally opens the door to the possibility that many more companies are using cheap overseas labour without paying attention to the conditions and pay these workers are going through in return for the companies' high profits.
Of course, why go overseas? Some developed nations such as the US and Australia have tried to bring in overseas workers secretly. In some cases, women from Thailand and Indonesia are also expected to work as prostitutes to pay off "debts" while still earning a pittance.
And if we really look deeply at the reason for bringing in overseas workers into Australia, one would find the Federal (Howard) Government is actually suffering from economic myopia as reflected in its past policies. As Les MacDonald of Balmain in NSW noted:
"The essentially short-term orientation of this Federal Government could nowhere be better on display than in its reaction to the skills [or labour?] shortage that has been developing in Australia for around a decade or more.
Instead of acting to deal with the approaching shortage when modifications to education and training policies would have ensured there were sufficient Australian-trained tradespeople, we leave it until it is an emergency and import skills from overseas while leaving young Australians unemployed ("Skills shortage prompts increase in migrant intake", Herald, April 15).
Brilliant." ("Left short again (Opinion & Letters)": The Sydney Morning Herald. 16-17 April 2005, p.38.)
In essence, it is all to do with minimising costs to help maximise profit (i.e. taxes earned) for the Federal Government. In other words, certain governments will choose not to do anything if it can save money until election time.
UPDATE
8 May 2005
ANU demographer Professor Peter McDonald said:
"Because of the high demand for young workers skilled in new technologies my feeling is that this higher level of migration is likely to be necessary for some time.
'In today's competitive economy, which is heavily reliant on technology, there is a great need for young workers who assimilate the technology. We can't just rely on old people working longer. They are complementary [workers], not substitutes. We can't teach old dogs new tricks. We really need new tricks in the competitive global market." (Streak, Diana. "One world, one nation — Flow of migrants' skills in past, present and future growth": The Canberra Times, 7 May 2005, p.B4.)
How many Australian workers above a certain age can claim they cannot be trained to use technology? Is the job really so complicated that you need to employ a rocket scientist to do the work?
Even if younger people are the only ones who can acquire the skills, the government doesn't exactly encourage school leavers (i.e. Year 10) to enter the lean years of apprenticeship training (often requiring support from their parents to keep the young adults at home so as to minimise costs for the government and the young apprentice). Current estimates on the pay provided by the government for apprentices is roughly in the order of A$6 per hour. As Lisa Powick of Chapman, Canberra, wrote:
"Here's an idea for those unable to think outside the square. Pay more than the paltry $6 per hour that apprentices currently earn and perhaps some of the country's teenagers will leave their $20 per hour jobs as kitchen hands and learn a trade.
'In five years' time, Australia's current skills shortage could be over." (Powick, Lisa. "Bump up apprentice pay rates": The Canberra Times. 12 March 2005, p.B10.)
If there is to be any more money offered by the Government for apprenticeship training, it is primarily in hospitality and retail. To reduce costs, little money is directed to training in other areas until the demand for products and services in those areas suddenly increases or there is a clear need to keep the economy going.
UPDATE
September 2005
Australian Prime Minister John Howard believes too many people attend universities but not enough are doing apprenticeships. However the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) this month has unveiled figures showing the greatest need is in skilled and sophisticated training in the use of the latest technology for use in information management, administration work and other skilled jobs. And only those with a degree or diploma are the ones able to spearhead these mostly full-time and potentially more permanent professional and semi-professional jobs paying a better salary.
Apart from the construction and mining industries, the number of jobs for tradespeople are in decline. But you wouldn't think so from the way Mr Howard is talking.
If one were to look at say the mid-level and elementary clerical, sales and service workers, there is a large growth in new part-time jobs (355,600 new jobs). This might support Howard's apprenticeship drive. Or the reason is because employers prefer to employ a significant number of people in these areas on a casual basis to reduce business costs.
What's more important to people looking for employment are the ones described as full-time and permanent. Here we find 26,200 new full-time (and therefore potentially permanent) jobs were created in these industries.
Now how many of these full time and permanent positions pay a decent salary to help cover the costs of living in Australia and allow people to achieve higher goals? It would explain why students would prefer to go to university to get the extra "thinking" skills under their belt and so increase their chances of getting a well-paid job.
Now compare the above figures to 781,200 new full-time jobs created for professionals, managers, administrators and semi-professionals (348,700 new part-time jobs in these areas), and it is clear the growth area is in skilled, well-paid and full-time (and thus potentially more permanent) employment. And the interesting thing about this figure is that many of these jobs require good thinking skills, a trait well developed by people with degrees and diplomas who have attended universities.
Far from diminishing the need for universities to provide some kind of traditional "thinking" courses, the statistics indicate people with degrees and diplomas have a much higher chance of gaining more permanent, well-paid and full-time jobs in information and technology industries than in any other jobs. (Uren, David. "Training trade-offs in force": The Australian. 24 September 2005, p.22.)
When faced with a high cost of living in Australia, you can't blame people looking for full-time, permanent and well-paid jobs while getting a university degree. People need to survive comfortably in the future with some form of financial security.
Do we need employment?
This brings us to another interesting trend so prevalent in people's thinking. A commonly held view of employment (or jobs) is how people believe earning money is essential for your survival. Why? Because money allows people to pay for things they need (and not just want). With this in mind, it is not surprising how many people believe finding employment in the current economic system is the only way to survive. In other words, the system has, for a long time, trained people to believe money is the only way to solve personal and world problems.
Is this the only way for people to survive?
What type of employment are people looking for?
If the current economic system is meant to be the solution to all personal and world problems, finding employment to pay for things usually brings people to the cities where the highest concentration of potential employment and of a higher pay level can be found.
On analysing the cities more closely, there is a tendency for people to be divided into two groups: those with a job living in more pristine and affluent areas, and those without a job.
While jobs can be found anywhere in the cities, the highest concentrations of jobs are in highly industrialised areas, the city centre, shopping complexes and malls, and in business technology areas. For the most income earned from a job, the employment will tend to be in the areas where people already have jobs and living in relative affluent areas, or to enter employment areas where products and services are in high demand.
Reasons for why people tend to be separated into social classes within the cities based on whether people have jobs or not is partly due to levels of education (the ones who have jobs tend to be the most educated or have skills that are considered valuable and most likely to get paid well). Yet at the same time, businesses tend to set prices for the essential "survival-based" products people need in a manner that suggests these items are presumably of high quality and/or have lots of transport and other costs (e.g., marketing) associated with them to make them unusually expensive. Although deep down this is probably more a case of business professionals wanting to maximise profit in everything that they sell. As such, those people without jobs tend to be more acutely aware of the cost to purchase these needy items compared to those who do have a job.
NOTE: People who create the essential products for the survival of the population (e.g. farmers)get paid very little money for their effort. Those who receive the "survival-based" products later and resell them to the consumer often do so at premium inflated prices for profit reasons.
Employment affects your physical and mental well-being
For people living in the cities, jobs are seen as social status symbols as they tend to let others know you are surviving okay and can probably afford a few luxuries along the way too. It can also be a means of attracting the opposite sex for a potential mate and so give the impression that a person can support a family.
Furthermore, having a job has a tendency to increase one's self-worth and feeling of belonging to a society should the job be seen as valuable. Otherwise, without employment and there is a risk people will feel worthless or not important in society especially when savings are low and becomes a prolonged struggle to pay for basic commodities.
Employment can make you feel wealthy
At the other end of the income earning extreme, having employment can potentially help people to display great wealth to others and make life easier to survive and enjoy if enough money is earned. In fact, there is no limit to how much money you can earn. You are only restricted by how much time you must (or wish to) spend in the job, what type of job it is, how much responsibilities you are willing to take on to manage the work and the people associated with the work, and how high your salary level is set by your employer (or yourself if running a business).
Employment means helping others, and not just yourself
Because people are busy with fulfilling their employment obligations as well as their own life goals or starting a family or simply don't know how best to spend some of their money for the benefit of society as a whole, the economic system does require that you donate a percentage of your money earned to "the government". Basically, if there has been any exchange in money for receiving products and/or services through a business or you have received a salary or wage for providing any services to other people, governments must create the business of collecting revenue from a portion of the profits or income that is made by you known as taxation.
The taxes raised by a government is used to pay for the building of infrastructure such as roads, and to provide free or low-cost access to common services such as hospitals, schools and other public amenities. Governments will also decide whether to use some of your money to pay for Defence, political advertisements during election times, increase their own salaries and so on. There is very little say on this matter except to choose the government you want to manage and spend the money wisely.
Of course, if you are not happy with how your money is being spent by your local, state or Federal Governments and there are enough people who feel the same way, you are perfectly entitled to become a politician to voice your views to the public, and eventually lead a political party if you know the best way of doing things and people will support you. Otherwise, you can change how things are done by running your own business so long as people are willing to support your business. Or else try to illegally move your earnings offshore to a tax-free haven to avoid paying taxes.
Therefore the number of jobs provided by the economic system and the amount of taxes that can be raised from the money earned in these jobs are a strong indicator of the health of the economic system and, potentially, the general financial health of its people who have jobs.
Taxes also provides a powerful instrument for influencing people to vote for a particular group of people (i.e. politicians) running government to stay in power.
At the end of the day, jobs and taxes are considered critical in keeping the economy going. This is especially true in areas where there is a demand for services and products by the consumer in the local, national and international markets. This includes products that cannot be recycled and services designed to provide quick profitable solutions.
Employment can drive business people to make more money
The economic system can also make some business professionals more acutely aware of how poorly some governments can spend their taxes. Therefore, every attempt is made by these business people to minimise paying taxes legally. At the same time, other attempts show the clever ways to illegally minimise or avoid tax if it can help to maximise the profits of these business people.
Other ways to reduce costs and maximise profit can include legally reducing wages and salaries of people working for the business professionals. Or employers can legally turn certain jobs into temporary or casual positions where the cost and time involved in employing, firing and finding someone as well as common entitlements (e.g. no sick days, no holidays etc) of full-time workers have been removed.
On the downside, short-term jobs may force some employers to spend more money on training new employees to do certain jobs. So it is not unusual for employers keen to reduce costs to selectively choose potential employees from job interviews who already have the skills. This leaves the governments to spend the money to train unemployed people for jobs to make them more attractive to employers. As one retired executive said about a flexible workforce working in casual positions for employers:
"They [employers] had to go after new markets, persuade people to retrain, and design new products. Anything to avoid expensive redundancy pay-outs. Now they just lay off their casuals and wait for the market up-turn, then hire a whole new set of casuals who have to be trained for the same old tasks. It's difficult to think of a more flabby way of doing things."
If it is legal or can be somehow hidden from the law in certain ways, profit-motivated employers will try to take advantage of people in short-term employment by getting them to do any kind of work for minimal wages and with the least amount of training required (if at all). Employers, especially the more profit-motivated ones, are likely to get a quick verbal agreement from people to accept a certain wage (or else deny people the job) which is often below the standard award wage for the type of job being provided. And should staff fail to attend even one day of work (even after 1, 2, or 20 years of service if they are lucky to work this long), it is likely the employers will dismiss the employee in favour of other cheap and more reliable employees.
In other situations, employers can be prepared to pay a little more to permanent full-time employees to convert their positions into contract work. For example, the former Federal Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews (under the Howard Government) had been forced to investigate claims that Melbourne company Kemalex Plastics, a supply of plastic parts for car manufacturers, is breaking the industrial law by re-employing its assembly line workers as independent contractors. Mr Andrews was compelled to act after a union began to campaign against Kemalex with the news spreading to its other factory in the city of Adelaide. But if nothing is said and workers do not stand up for their rights, the government would not do anything and employers can get away with many things all in the name of making a high enough profit.
So how does this work?
It was claimed in the above case that around 55 low-paid permanent workers were earning A$12.60 an hour. Then employer saw a cost saving opportunity under the unfair dismissal laws. However, to entice workers to the contract positions, the employer had to dangle a carrot in front of the workers' eyes by means of a slightly higher payment rate per hour if the workers accepted the new positions. This would force the employees to take out their own Australian Business Number (ABN), pay their own superannuation and would lose entitlements to sick leave, long service leave and annual leave. In this way, employees who do take leave from work for any reason could face the sack without any rights of appeal under any type of unfair dismissal laws set up by a R-wing government. Furthermore, the costs to administer the standard entitlements of permanent workers would be reduced, making it cheaper in the long run for the employer to run its business, and with it a higher profit over the long-term.
The dispute did get worse before Mr Andrews intervened following claims of some company representatives visiting the homes of employees at night delivering threatening letters and a group of motorcyclists was used by the company to break through a picket line organised by a union in support of the vulnerable workers. (Phillips, Mark. Probe into legality of "sham contracts": The Canberra Times. 14 May 2005, p.11.)
What this tells us is that employers can be motivated by profit from their business enterprises to the point where any opportunity to reduce costs is likely to be taken since lower costs means higher profits. The same is true for the costs of having employees doing the jobs within the businesses. If there is a legal way to lower employee's salaries or wages and/or remove their entitlements, the employers will try it.
As a result, and especially when a R-wing government is in power and giving greater legal powers for employers to do what they want with employees, the jobs are relentlessly stressful to employees when they do find a job not only because employers have the upper hand when it comes to sacking their temporary and casual staff, but also because those who do have a permanent job have extra responsibilities due to a reduction in permanent staff as well as helping temporary staff to adapt to the work, not to mention the number of clients requiring assistance has suddenly increased.
NOTE 1: Australian Prime Minister Mr John Howard wants to abolish state-based industrial-relations systems in favour of a single Federal industrial-relations designed to give employers greater power to decide the future of employees. For example, employers will soon be able to shorten the duration of employment, give no sick days, choose when to sack employees at any time without giving a reason (or if employees say "No" to any unreasonable or extremely difficult to fulfil requests from the employers might be reason enough to sack someone), give the least amount of wages to employees (if any wages at all given the emphasis by Australian business and government to find volunteer workers in preference over paid workers), and remove the no-disadvantage test which will see Australian Workplace Agreements undercutting existing awards. This new system is being pushed through parliament after 1 July 2005 thanks to its Senate majority. But as Family First Senator Steve Fielding said:
"Realistically it is great to have a job but there is no point in having one if it's not secure.
'The [industrial-relations] legislation that is being put forward is a lot to do with job security and I want to make sure people feel secure in their jobs." (Peake, Ross. Lib warns Govt not to abuse majority: The Canberra Times. 2 July 2005, p.4.)
The only way a job can be given a sense of greater security in the eyes of employees is if you become a manager and/or you are a very good worker. Only then will employers offer special incentives such as maternity leave, flexible hours, annual leave, sick leave and access to training as part of a more individual Australian Workplace Agreement (AWA) to keep you in the job and get your complete loyalty to the business or government department. Otherwise, for ordinary workers including school-leavers, AWAs will offer virtually no incentives and, given the shear number of such workers, be based on collective agreements. For these workers, these will become what New Zealanders describe as the working poor. This is based on a solid 14 years experience after New Zealand went through a similar reform in 1991.
As former Australian Prime Minister Mr Bob Hawke said:
"What chance has a young kid got, particularly if they were going into an industrial situation, of bargaining with an employer?" (The Sydney Morning Herald: Great conciliator joins industrial relations war 9-10 July 2005, p.4.)
NOTE 2: For ordinary workers, employers will use limited funding as the preferred excuse for offering short-term employment. At first, potential employees may apply for what appears to be a permanent job. Then discover on being offered the job by the employer that the job is for 3 months or less to see how the employees do their jobs. Afterwards a decision might be made to extend the job's duration. But if not, employers will pretend to have a reason for sacking employees by claiming inadequate funding (instead of training, finding more suitable employment, give incentives, improve work conditions etc). This avoids creating the impression in the employees' minds of possible discrimination by the employers and so protect their bottom-line and their reputations.
As a result, under a R-wing government, the employment situation would normally see more and more people looking increasingly desperate for any type of job and in trying to keep it once they find one, even if it is not what they like or enjoy. To keep the jobs, people are often prepared to work overtime, perform shift work, work faster and within tighter deadlines, and even go without holidays and accept overtime just to prove to the employer how valuable they are at work. The consequence of this approach is that there is often very little time to do anything else other than work. Thus all those other important things like family life, exercising, sleeping and eating a good diet are often overlooked.
Then the children of these overworked parents grow up with poor food eating habits, too much watching television or playing games on the computers if not preoccupied with homework, become obese, display poor behavioural manners when dealing with strangers, and have little person-to-person communication unless it is on the Internet.
Or people may decide not to have a family at all so they can perform their work without other stressors to contend with. Staying single or getting a divorce is therefore quite common.
And all this as certain employers and the R-wing government will have the nerve to say to these stressed employees, "It is better to have a job, than no job at all", so that employees get the idea that they should enjoy what they've got anyway, so smile!
Employment can drive governments to find ways to increase tax revenues
The obsession by some R-wing governments to get people into any job as a means of making the statistics of the economy look good and hopefully keep the politicians in power at the next election knows no boundaries and, in fact, reveals the power of money through the taxes collected on the thinking of many politician, especially the R-wing types. Like business owners, a politician in power will find many cunning ways to get people at work to pay extra taxes at certain times, and then give some of it back at around election time to win enough gullible voters with short memories. Or else, if you don't have a job, to reduce funding in training and education, and stop paying social security payments if the politicians think this will achieve what they want to see.
For example, in Australia, the R-wing Federal (Howard) Government decided, at one time, to classify an increasing number of people as earning a high income through what was called "tax bracket creep". This means that every financial year the government would quietly lower the income thresholds set by the Tax Office of middle Australians to give the impression to the Tax Office that these people were earning a high income and, therefore, have to pay extra tax. Then around election time, the Government may give a small tax cut (roughly $4 to $8 per individual as if taxpayers will have short memories and, therefore, will re-elect the Government for being nice enough to give some money back. As the Australian Labor Shadow Treasurer Mr Mark Latham has remarked in September 2003 about tax bracket creeps:
"As wages go up [for the average working Australians], people move into higher tax brackets. They pay more taxes through to [Treasurer Peter] Costello. And the government at budget time gives part of them back in the form of a sandwich and milkshake tax cut.
'So it's a bit of a pea-and-thimble trick, to collect more taxes over the 12 months and then give back part of them in the budget. That's not something that's actually going to help the average Australian family." (1)
Another technique used by primarily R-wing governments is to change legislation to help classify more people as employees rather than "self-employed" contractors running a business (including situations where they allow recruitment agencies to match clients for them and/or after working for a period of time for one client). In that way, the Government can maximise the tax these people have to pay. An example of this has occurred in Australia where the Federal (Howard) Government had implemented just such a scheme following the introduction of the GST in Australia in 2000.
More people in employment means more taxes
Generally the more people there are working, and thus earning money, in a economically-driven society, the more taxes that can be raised, and with it the more money that is available to keep certain politicians in power at election time. In the case of R-wing governments, all sorts of excuses will be made to claim they can't afford public services, until election time comes around, and them pump billions of dollars in propping up the ailing public services to make things look good again.
In addition, R-wing governments will over-emphasise jobs (and hence the money from taxes) as being so important that they are prepared to do nasty things to the unemployed to force them to accept any kind of job, even ones offering no permanency (usually lasting a day or two), has the minimum wage possible, and have poor working conditions. But that doesn't matter to the R-wing government so long as they get extra taxes and the statistics on unemployment look good at election time.
To achieve this, the R-wing government must blame the unemployed for allegedly not trying hard enough to find and/or accept any kind of job (even if the jobs are short-term and don't pay all the bills). But they need to get the public to believe this is the case for all "unemployed' people to have a chance of making this idea stick.
There is a great deal of effort made by the government to highlight the odd few individuals who seem to abuse the social security system as part of an attempt to convince taxpayers all unemployed people must be rorting the system. Once the public seems convinced of this possibility, the government feel they are morally in their rights to subject the unemployed to dubious techniques such as unexpected overpayments of social security which have to be paid back often at a late stage, a sudden and unexpected reduction in rental assistance from the government, the use of secret surveillance activities to find out whether people are doing the right thing or not, indirectly influencing the disadvantaged to join the Defence force, reducing government funding to public educational institutions in order to get the disadvantaged to join the Defence force or to enter very specific areas of employment which the Government wants (2).
And in December 2008, the R-wing (Howard) Government had suggested Australia should follow the United States of providing social security for only 6 months then cut people off. It is hoped this approach would force people to take any jobs available to them. What the government doesn't tell you, however, is that such an approach will create a more divisive and insecure society where people have to pay more for law enforcement to control the explosion of organised crime as those people left behind find their own solutions to surviving. There needs to be a more compassionate and effective education and training system to help people enter certain jobs.
For those already in employment, getting people to accept temporary or casual employment is much harder. So the government and businesses are prepared to pay a higher than usual starting hourly pay rate just to get people into the jobs and later reduce the pay rate or allow the Government or businesses to reduce the work during the course of the contract and so give them the power to pay less to people for doing less work. Unfortunately, due partly to profit motivations and/or high population levels, the jobs will have little or no certainty in how long people can stay in the jobs.
Once people are in casual jobs, the figure for unemployment can suddenly look rather good as it seems more people are in employment. What is not revealed is how many of the jobs are not permanent positions.
As for those people who are in permanent jobs, they tend to be over 40 years of age, highly "L-brain" people, living very well off at home and socially, who support the policies of R-wing governments of the day, and will never want to share their jobs with younger people for fear of losing the jobs until they retire. And even then, people who do take over the jobs must have a similar belief system and thinking as the original people who owned the job. Hence the economic system is maintained as usual.
In the case where employment is permanent (and advertised in the employment sections of papers), these are highly multiskilled and stressful positions where people stay for only a short while. The Government and businesses will try to keep people in these positions for as long as possible through extremely high salary levels, but the truth is most people get out of these positions as soon as they have earned enough or cannot cope with the job so they can enjoy a seachange because of the stresses of work.
And if that is not enough, some R-wing governments will fund scientific studies into ways of reducing the number of hours for humans to sleep if there is a chance everyone can work longer.
In a study carried out by scientists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, USA, a gene was discovered in fruit flies that control the flow of potassium ions to critical areas of the brain responsible for sleep. By modifying the gene, scientists have successfully breed fruit flies that can now sleep for three to fours hours instead of six to 12 hours and without affecting the flies ability to do its pre-defined work. Because humans have the same kind of genes and potassium channels as fruit flies, scientists believe it may be possible to create a human that does not need to go through the long periods of deep sleep.
As Ciara Cirelli, a professor of psychiatry at Winconsin and the lead author of the study, said:
"This research offers the possibility of developing a new class of compounds that could affect potassium channels in the brain rather than the brain chemical systems targeted currently." (The Canberra Times: Fruit-fly study finds gene that regulates need for sleep. 30 April 2005, p.30.)
Now wouldn't that thrill some R-wing governments of the world seeking ways to keep people working for longer hours to support an ageing population and raise higher tax revenues.
Unfortunately what is not explained in the study is the effect shortened sleep has on the human brain, in particular the R-brain and frontal cortex for greater creative thinking, should the same gene be modified. Flies don't need to be creative or have a huge frontal cortex to solve problems in an original way. All the insects need is just enough time to rest their bodies (apparently requiring less than 4 hours) and quickly continue with their pre-programmed tasks for the next 20 hours. But what would happen to the creative centres of the human brain and the ability to simplify information as needed to solve problems to an original level (i.e. without relying on pure memory to regurgitate pre-defined solutions as taught by society) if sleep was shortened?
Would refreshed humans after three to four hours sleep act like robots? Or will they have enough sleep for the brain to properly process information and solve problems in the most creative (and rational) manner possible as humans should be doing in today's society?
Dr Cirelli believes the potassium channels only affect deep sleep of the non-REM (Rapid Eye Movement) variety. Dr Cirelli thinks the creative centres will not be affected in humans because the REM part of the sleep where dreams take place will not be affected.
Do we really know what we are doing?
How do we know the rest of the deep sleep is not crucial to developing the all-important REM sleep? Dreams are like the culmination of vivid creative summaries or solutions of various patterns we have accumulated during the day and potentially throughout our lives through the patterns we have kept in memory. But before those dreams can appear, the brain must sort through the patterns and present a semi-coherent or coherent (depending on how L-brain we are) pattern of what it has learnt for its survival.
If scientists are not careful in how it tampers with the human genes, we could develop humans who are more robots than creative creatures designed to solve problems in a more original manner. It will be the equivalent of lobotomising the frontal cortex and the R-brain should this become a reality. And all the scientists will ever achieve from this study is to create humans that will continually re-live and remember the main events of the day. No creativity, and no effective problem solving. You just do exactly as you are told in society for longer working hours and you sleep without creativity. This is what we were like many millions of years ago when the days on Earth were much shorter. But as the days have become longer and humans began to find extra time to think about things, the extra hours of sleep during the night have helped to reorganise the brain in a more efficient manner and be more creative.
The result is a more effective brain for problem-solving.
Now humans could be facing a reversal in the way our brains work thanks to this study.
Further details about this study can be found in the late April edition of Nature. (The Canberra Times: "Fruit-fly study finds gene that regulates need for sleep". 30 April 2005, p.30.)
The power of money by way of taxes (and hence people in jobs) to corrupt the thinking of certain politicians in government can't be dismissed easily.
UPDATE
30 January 2007
On average, Australians are working more hours than workers in the US, Germany and Japan.
Another thing worth mentioning is the jobless rate. Now below 5 per cent in Australia, the reason for the low rate is because more jobs are being made casual together with a change in the government's definition of a job. Today, the Federal Government accepts a job as someone working 2 hours or more per fortnight. So if you work only 2 hours per fortnight, you have a job!
And when it is time to explain the jobless rate at election time, enough people in unemployment are placed in short-term casual positions to help give the impression everyone is in full-time permanent work.
What is the solution?
Life is not entirely all fun and play. However, fun and play should be the aim of all work we do. Surely, people cannot be expected to work forever and for long hours until they drop dead just to earn enough money to afford certain things. People need to see the meaning of their lives beyond the mere work we do.
Yet at the same time, the reality of living in the physical universe tells us that we need to survive in order to achieve other goals. Work, or gaining some form of employment where you will be rewarded for your efforts through an exchange of something that allows you to survive and hopefully free time to do whatever else you would like to do, is still an essential part of life, whether we like it or not. This is where the concept of "employment" comes into the picture. In the current economic society, when we allow other people to work in order to grow and bring us the food and water we need to survive in return for our time to work for them or in other areas to receive the money so we can purchase the needy items, we are effectively working.
We all have to work to some extent if we are to survive at the very least.
But there are some people who like to work harder and longer hours in order to make lots of money. Why? Apart from our needs, we all want to be happy and have meaning in our lives. And the only thing we can see that makes sense is the ability to purchase almost anything we want. In that way we feel more important and we can feel more loved through the things we can acquire through money. Then we think we are finally happy.
The only way to earn enough money in the current economic system is to work incredibly long hours, take on more responsibilities, and climb the career ladder where the salaries get higher, or create your own employment and be your own boss, and sell as many widgets of something you can to other people. There are no other better way to make enough money than doing the latter. Just find something that other people need or want, make it attractive, show the unique selling point that makes it better than any of your competitors, find ways to make this work enjoyable, and if the selling part is easy to the consumer, you can make lots of money.
Then you can have more time for relaxation and play.
So you have a choice. Work for others (and let others decide what they think the wider community needs or wants) and do exactly as you are told (unless you are allowed to be creative), or work for yourself and you decide what it is you should do to help others. Or you can simply grow your own food and gather your own water and never have to worry about another person again. Nothing wrong with this approach too. In fact, indirectly you will still be helping others through your efforts to rebuild the environment and make the land productive again. And it may even help the government to save money on the health system knowing that you are healthy and fit in the work you do.
It does not matter what you do. So long as you are doing something by way of work to survive, then you have done the minimum asked of you. You are alive! Also, there are options on how we can work. Furthermore, you can decide how much work you want to spend and with whom in order to achieve the goals you are looking for. And whatever you do, if done with love, the benefits will be for everyone and not just yourself.
With this in mind, the next question we must consider is, "Do you need to make money from your work for you to reach your goals?" The answer will depend on the goals you are seeking: is it to survive and have time to be happy and enjoy life, or to work harder to have other things?
Leaving aside the aspirations of business professionals and some politicians in becoming rich as possible and have the power to control whatever they want (including the direction of the economy), the purpose of doing work is first and foremost to survive. That is the number one goal when we perform work. It means that you do not have to always earn an income to survive and be happy or to constantly help others on a daily basis.
If there is anything else you want to achieve in life, then decide how much extra work you may need to do. But remember, work to live, not live to work. Make sure you do a sensible amount of work, and be clever about the type of work you do. Choose the areas that will pay you well or give you the most money. Don't work more than you need to. Be smart about how you work. And focus more on the important goals beyond the work you do.
And if you want a simple sea- or tree-change where you focus on just surviving and finding plenty of time to relax and enjoy life without any further costs to you, the option is there at any time. It is really up to you.
If you need inspiration and support for this, just look at how happy native people living in Africa, South America and Papua New Guinea are in surviving and having what they need. And all done without one cent exchanging the hands of the people to achieve the simple goal of surviving. They grow or gather their food, socialise a lot, and later have time to play and have fun. It is so much easier on everyone involved in this type of society.
Technically, what this is telling us is that we could have no unemployment problem in the world if we choose our work very carefully, and especially one that will meet all our survival needs.
Despite the option, there are people who still want more. They are the high achievers, the people who want to achieve greater things, or later to relax and enjoy life with whatever is available and they can afford to have. Thus you will find some people have made a choice to see the current economic system as a solution to both their survival needs and in getting most of what they want, simply by earning enough money. In which case, what choice do people have for employment in the current economic system to help them survive and give them what they want? Potentially a lot if they can create their own business and sell something that is in demand by the people. But not a lot if they become an employee working for someone else, unless you are happy to work in many different jobs over short periods of time, accept a lower wage, and perform a wide range of skills and tasks within your position as dictated by your employer. If you can survive this for long enough, perhaps your experience may count for something and one day you may receive a more permanent job that pays you well.
Even the parents of the L-brain society's economic society continue to have this naive notion that if their child takes an interest in anything that they will always have a job in that area of interest. Dream and it will become a reality. An ideal scenario in a truly balanced society, but not in a L-brain society where many people are looking for work. We see this from the way certain government try to encourage people to work in specific areas of greatest need for society. So, for many parents, they like to see their children aspire to familiar areas that pay well and is important to society as they know it today. Doctors and lawyers are a particular favourite for parents.
But how do we know the future needs of society? What if other jobs become more important and pays better? And what if the children just want to have their needs met and nothing else, and the rest of the time they can be happy?
Yet the more economically enlightened parents will look at the jobs of today and do everything they can to direct their children into areas they consider pays well and is seen as a noble profession. Then we find the children have to study hard, only to discover they need experience before they can get the jobs. In the meantime, to get experience, you often have to accept anything you are given and let employers reduce the period of employment, the amount of pay, and raise the expectations they have of their employees to do extra duties, work overtime, and so on. These poor conditions and low pay are all part of a cost-cutting measure designed to raise the profits of the employers running their own businesses.
Because of this, the only way people can truly get permanent employment that earns enough money within the current economic system, is if:
(i) we reduce population levels.
(ii) stop the high profit mentality of certain greedy employers.
(iii) provide free education to the masses.
(iv) encourage people to create employment of their own which will interest other people and so help to make some money.
Until these factors are properly addressed, people will be forced to accept a system which is only barely coping with the shear numbers of people living in the economic system combined with the high profit-mentality of many business professionals. Or else, people must create there own kind of employment for themselves (we can only hope it is legal). Or hope for the best that their parents have a business of their own to help everyone.
And what if people do not want to work in the economic system? What then? Are we to deny people's happiness if all they want is a cosy small home on a piece of land that is productive and can be managed and to share in the abundance with their like-minded neightbours and perhaps with the rest of the world (through their organic produce)?
For example, what happens if enough people choose to move out of the cities and work in rural communities to grow their own food, build their own houses, rebuild the environment, and never pay taxes again? The option is certainly there to create a new world order based on a non-economic system where potentially unemployment is banished forever, there is no stress for the people to survive while learning to grow foods on the land, build their own houses, and repair the environment to a pristine state. All healthy economies need a healthy environment. Plus the economic system can benefit from buying excess organic foods produced by the rural communities for which many people in the cities are willing to pay heavily for.
There is the potential in such a new world order for everyone to see unemployment as a distant memory. It is really up to us to decide the type of employment we want to go into and to pursue it to achieve the goals we want. And you don't always have to live in the economic system to achieve those goals. There is more to life than making money all the time.
The critical thing is for you to decide what is important to reach for in your life and how you intend to get there. If you need to make money, then go for it. Work in the economic system. If you need to survive or find more time to think about things outside of helping on the land to make it productive and become an effective carbon sink for controlling climate change, then maybe the non-economic system is the best way to go for a while.
It is really up to you.
In the end, the power to see unemployment virtually banished from the face of the Earth is in our hands if we all decide to establish a new world order that is balanced (i.e., never fixated on just making money all the time).