It’s the Drop in Wages that You Need to Accept

Your problem, and the problem of most unemployed adults, is that you refuse to work for minimum wages, not only because of personal choice, but also due to the loans you incurred while giving yourself an education. Thus, you remain jobless.

Do not mind the tone of this article, it is not intended to cast any slur on those seeking jobs, but it is difficult for me to refrain from criticizing a system that’s so incredibly distorted. Most of the new jobs you see listed as job growth find few takers as they have strict qualitative requirements that are widely disparate from the skill sets of traditional occupations or those developed by established educational courses. Most of the new jobs require extensive and costly retraining, and even if you manage to shell out the precious dollars, there is no guarantee that you will get a job, or that the job you get would empower you sufficiently to fend off your loans and shoulder your responsibilities.

It is time to understand that high unemployment rates are here to stay and the drop in average wages for each job is going to increase with each passing day. Political leaders who enjoy a 100 working day year, and can retire on pensions and benefits by serving just a single term at the Senate, can hardly be expected to truly understand the situation of an honest American worker. It’s no secret that the government is clueless about the situation, and rather than creating a viable environment to tackle problems at their roots, it is engaged in pacifying sentiment by temporary measures like extension of UI benefits. Even children know that it is better to teach a man how to fish, than providing him with one, which will feed him maximum for a day. The problem starts with educational systems and professional training methods. Existent educational courses in famed colleges provide degrees but not the required skills for meeting the expectations of employers. However, the educational system remains costly enough to ensure a lifelong burden of loans for each graduate.

Recently, and sporadically over the past there has been outbursts against outsourcing from ruling political quarters. Rather than trying to garner cheap popularity by fuelling illogical hate politics, it would do better if the government really took a look at how and why jobs are outsourced. If you were not looking for a job, but running a business, you would look at your cost-benefit, and outsourcing processes do have their appeal. But have you given a thought at how, for example, a graduate in India who possesses the advanced skill sets to handle the outsourced process remains satisfied at one-fourth the salary for the same job in US? It is cost – benefit, and dollar for dollar, the graduate from India is in a better position than the graduate in US.

The reason is that the government in India does not believe in unemployment benefits, but believes in heavily subsidizing education for all. Believe it or not, I was talking to a lawyer friend from India who passed in 1996 and he told me that his educational fees amounted to Rs. 12/- per month or around 25 cents per month while studying at the Department of Law, Calcutta University. The concept of borrowing money to educate one’s self was difficult for him to understand as much as receiving benefits from the government for being unemployed. That graduate from India is not less versed or less intelligent in any manner, but if expenses of his or her education are compared to the salary in any available job, the cost-benefit percentage is way higher than that available in most US education/ US job scenario. So, rather than rallying against outsourcing, it would do better to understand how those countries got into the position of being able to receive outsourced jobs.

However, even if the government comes to its senses and changes do occur, they will take a long time to be implemented and as for the present generation of workers is concerned, there would hardly be any permanent benefit. The only thing you can do to improve the situation is to understand that low wages have come to stay and refusing jobs today in hope of better wages tomorrow may not be prudent any more. That better wage scenario may never materialize and the only things you will lose are your time, experience, and security that could have been earned by not refusing jobs, but engaging yourself in a job right now.