More thoughts while being unemployed…
Refer back to a previous entry, “Being Unemployed“.
Slashdot posted a couple of more interesting links, which reflect how I feel in ways, and also supports my thinking.
The first: US jobs jumping ship. This was a subject of my previous entry, and shows that more industries are migrating overseas. IT just being the first. This makes sense from a capitalists point of view. Sorta. You want to build or provide service for the cheapest amount possible. I’m just wondering where their customers are going to come from when nobody has any money to spend in the future. But that doesn’t affect this quarter’s earnings. Eh.. oh well.. it seems to be a vicious cycle, the economy sucks, so jobs are moved overseas to reduce cost, which puts more local people out of work, which means they spend less, which means the companies sell less, etc.. repeat. Actually it’s not an endless cycle.. it stops when the cost of living of foreign workers match the cost of living locally. And that certainly does seem to be happening, but we’re probably still many years from that. And wait.. it’s not going to get much better, because IT is not going to be the last industry this happens to. Economic recovery is not going to happen until the people have jobs. That’s not going to happen until the displaced people IT workers find a new field, and the other industries are done migrating. At the end of this we’ll probably see some sort of greater global economic equilibrium. Which will be great for the world, but sucks for those who got displaced because of it during the time.
The second link: Take this tech job and shove it. Ahh.. yes.. I can’t say all jobs look like that, but many certainly lean in that direction. “3+ years of J2ME.” WTF? Phones that are capable haven’t even been around nearly that long. I guess they’re looking for some sort of visionary programmer who leapt on it while it was just a twinkle in some Sun engineers’/managers’ eyes. “Must be willing to work extra hours”. I’m certainly willing, whether or not the job requires it, but when the job listing posts it this way explicitly, I can help but read that as “You will be working extra hours all the time”. I know people will take it up, but that just seems like exploitation.
So, what does all this mean. In both cases, it is obvious the employer holds all the cards. Which means, the best solution for the unemployed is to start their own (successful) business. Your employer won’t ship your job overseas, your employer won’t exploit you. And in a way it makes more sense to start a business now. There is less competition. There is less innovation from established companies (they’re less likely to do something radical which may fail, so they stick to what’s tried and true). And if you fail, you aren’t really that much worse off, right? If you succeed, and the economy recovers, you’re right in front instead of trying to push your way through from the back.