Unemployment is one of the most important metrics used by most economists to gauge whether an economy is doing well or not. But why is it that most nations that have a sound economy often have high figures of unemployment? One of the simple reasons could be that as companies become more competitive with each other, one of the first things to be slashed down happens to be the wages and extra personnel they may have hired in the past.
With more companies focusing on downsizing in order to compete more effectively, this has resulted in increasing unemployment. And then there’s the question of illegal migrants who are willing to work for far less which has led many companies to move their base of operations overseas. As you can see, various factors including a failing economy can help contribute to an increasing trend of unemployment.
A few governments including the US have enacted laws to protect their citizens and to prevent companies from shifting their center of operations overseas by providing these companies with tax benefits and at the same time, forcing these companies to hire only Americans. Even France has enacted a series of protectionist measures, but as most experts would concur, that it is not possible to force a sentiment on a market and that protectionist measures have shown that they have this remarkable tendency to backfire. As a result of rampant unemployment and little by way of equitable benefits, most of the workforce, the world over earn less than they normally would and the benefits are sparse at the most.
Given this scenario, it is not unexpected for those who remain unemployed to develop chronic depression, and some have even taken the step towards committing suicide. A recent study highlighted the increasing tendency of those unemployed to develop chronic depression. This further exacerbates their current situation as they often fail to take the initiative and take advantage of fresh new opportunities. And then there’s the associated emotional cost involved with being unemployed which pushes them further into depression which eventually ends up with suicide.
Most governments realize that unemployment Is an insidious menace and one that needs to be tackled right away which is why most governments have instituted a process by which they hope to curb both inflation and unemployment. While most governments focus more on offering sops to companies to cajole them to boost their recruitment rankings, India it seems is determined to think out of the box where unemployment is concerned. The PM of India has instead opted to focus on entrepreneurship, as an effective way to create more enterprises/ companies and in the process, help bring down the unemployment stats.
If you have got the pink slip and are unemployed at the moment, please remember that you can always apply for another job and it is not the end of the world. Granted that landing a new job with equitable pay is hard and not as easy as it sounds; you just need to remain focused, and determined, and soon in no time at all, you should have a new job.