THE UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM
The unemployment problem is found in most of the countries. It is caused by the rapid growth of population, the slow economic growth and the defective education system. Unemployed people easily become criminals. They disturb internal peace in the country and tempt aggressive countries to invade it.
Several steps are taken by the government of India to help the unemployed. Through the Five Year Plans the Indian Government offers employment to many people. Small scale industries are encouraged with government loans. Agricultural reforms and government loans to agriculturists absorb several unemployed people. The inventions and discoveries of scientists lead to the establishment of new factories and industries which offers jobs to thousand of people. Family planning is advertised to reduce the rapid growth of population of the country. More and more of job oriented course are introduced to increase the number of job opportunities.More educated people want only government jobs for regular monthly income, provident funds and pension benefits,free medical treatment, quarters,etc. But there are not enough government jobs to offer or creates only job opportunities for the unemployed.Industries are now offering to their employees several of the benefits offered by the government to government servants. But private enterprises want to employ only qualified hands fit for the jobs.
Temporary jobs are sometimes available to many people and many rural people who go to urban areas for such jobs when they have no work in the fields create a competition. The jobless have to struggle against the rural people who have work at least for a few months every year. There are more jobless people than the employment exchanges show, and their number increases your after year. Now situations are created by both the government and the private firms and industries, thanks to the advancement of science, to employ hundreds of unemployed people. But the unemployment problem keeps growing. The census reports do not show the exact number of people living in the country at the time of the census taking. So the population of the world is greater than what the world knows. The people whose names are not found in the census record also compete for jobs and want to get the necessaries of life.
Brain drain becomes inevitable. Talented people go to work in foreign lands. Nevertheless, the unemployment problem in the country keeps growing. Special circumstances like war,flood and cyclone damaging buildings, electric lamp posts, telegraph wires, roads and bridges require workers to repair and re-construct them. But the get only temporary jobs in such situation. Everybody wants a permanent job, preferably a government job.
The government cannot offer jobs to all citizens in the country. The treasury out of which the government offers wages and salaries is filled up by the taxes given by the citizens and the profits made through government. The number of direct tax payers is much smaller than the number of the people who do not pay taxes. If suppose, all the unemployed are to be employed by the government, it cannot pay wages and salaries to all of them because the treasury cannot have the required money. The second truth is that no government can create jobs for all the unemployed in the country. Hence most of them should seek for jobs under private enterprises. The job-givers want to employ only people who are qualified to do the jobs given to them at the factories and industries. They take in a few thousand qualified and reject the others.The government and some private individuals can lend money to some of the unemployed to start small scale industries and cottage industries and sell vegetables,fruits and other things to earn their daily bread. But there will still remain many thousands of people without jobs. They won’t commit suicide just because they don’t get jobs. They will try to get their food by hook or by crook. Some of them will become criminals,terrorists,hijackers and cheats. The others will take to the profession of begging.
Should the society allow the jobless to become social misfits or remain unfit for any jobs? Since the population keeps growing, the number of such anti-social people will also keep increasing war,disease,earthquake,volcanic eruption,floods,famine,murders and suicides will take away only a negligible percentage of the human population. The competition for jobs, the unemployment problem and the helplessness of the government and private parties will remain. So the unemployment problem seems to be an eternal one.The advertisements for appointments show that thousands of workers are wanted for various situations, but with specific qualifications. All the unemployed are not qualified for the jobs offered. Where ten engineers are wanted, ten thousand arts graduates apply for ten seats. Where commerce graduates alone are wanted. History graduates apply. It is clear that something is wrong with the modern education and the manufacturers of graduates, namely, the universities.
The universities should know what types of graduates they should produce and they should also know beforehand that all the graduates should get employment. The job giving agencies like the various government departments and private parties(factories and industries, merchants and quasi government departments as well as masters and mistresses of families) should frequently keep telling the universities what qualifications the graduates they want should have so that the academic circles may introduce suitable courses to produce their graduates. These courses will automatically become job oriented courses. Most of the graduates of such courses will be absorbed in service. But even with this reform in education the problem of unemployment is not going to be solved. There will still remain a few hundred qualified graduates unemployed. Their number will keep growing year after year. The graduates in service have to reach the age of retirement or some of them should die before retirement, creating vacant seats for the unemployed but qualified graduates.
The total quantity of work to be done by each individual and that to be done by each department for a year can be foreknown. If the number of the qualified people available for each kind of job is also known a certain kind of work for the whole year can be equally divided among the people already in service and the new hands. It may lead to some funny results. An employee in that situation may get only an hour of work per day, or even work only for five minutes per day. A new problem now arises: how much money should be given as salary or wages to each of these employees?if they are to be given the full salary which was given to some of them before the introduction of the new system, the public treasury and the private party’s treasury will be empty after one month. What will they do to pay the employee’s second - month salaries? They can’t print the required currency notes and mint fresh coins.
The only remedy will be to reduce their salaries to the extent that will help them to get their necessaries of life. Inspire to this arrangement, fresh currency notes and fresh coins will have to be made to pay them all and all round the year. If there is no hitch with rest of the world on account of this arrangement, we may rest assured that there is a modern Utopia come into being!
Thank you,
R.Rajkumar
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