One of the saddest and most revealing books I have ever read was written about the Great Depression. ‘The Unemployed Man and His Family’ was written by an American academic called Mirra Komarovsky.
She interviewed 59 white men who had lost their jobs in the depression and tried to assess the impact on their families.
I read it when I was in university and it has stayed with me for the past 20 years. If you want to know why unemployment and the reduction in unemployment — not the banks, the bondholders or some secondary issue to do with the financial markets — has to be the cornerstone of our economic policy, read it.
If you don’t have the time to read it, just look at what is happening around you.
The original American study was the first to relate the loss of a job to the loss in self-esteem; it was the first to highlight alcoholism and depression associated with redundancy. It was also the first to link marital breakdown and domestic violence to unemployment.
In ‘The Unemployed Man and his Family’, the writer went deep into families and documented how the redundant father lost the respect of his children as well as the wider society, how the sex lives of the couples were destroyed and how many men didn’t recover from long spells of unemployment — even those who did get jobs eventually when the economy recovered.
In the 1930s, unemployed families and couples stopped socialising, not just because of a lack of money but also because of the embarrassment. Anyone who has experienced unemployment in the family will know that the family can become quite remote from their neighbours and friends. The family sometimes cuts itself off. This puts huge pressure on the family and in many cases the family is not strong enough to deal with this.
The world has obviously changed dramatically since the 1930s — not least gender equality changes and the entrance of women to the workplace — but the lessons are still valid.
The detrimental impact of unemployment happens at any age. One of the most annoying things I have heard in recent months regarding unemployment among young people and graduates is when older people dismiss it with the “get off your arse” line.
Equally infuriating is the assumption that because they are young, a stint of unemployment won’t affect them too dramatically. Again, the evidence from the United States reveals the opposite. The young unemployed go off the rails very quickly and very easily.
In Japan, which in the 1990s went through what we are going through now in terms of unemployment and economic collapse, the evidence is startling. The Japanese Centre for Socio-Economic Development reveals that the generation who started in the workforce in the 1990s and had to deal with high levels of unemployment in their early career now make up six out of every 10 cases of depression and stress.
Something similar is happening all over our country at the moment. So, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to let our doctors and our pharmacies deal with this? Are we going to let dealers make a fortune while we pick up the tab?
If we look at all economic recoveries, they are always led by small businesses. So small businesses will drag us out of this mire and in the main will be the key driver for employment growth. But at the moment in Ireland most small businesses are not in the position to employ people. The margins are too tight and demand is not strong enough, in fact it is weakening. In addition, if you have worked in a small business, you will know that training people can cost a huge amount in terms of time and cost. So we must do something that makes it easy for small companies to hire.
On the flip side, there are thousands of graduates who don’t really know what they want to do, but might have an idea of what type of industries interest them. How many of us have been faced with the dilemma of “how do I get in the door”? How often, particularly when we were younger, did we lament, “if only I can get a chance to impress these people”?
So, how do we get in the door when the people inside the door don’t even know that we are there? This is where the labour market has to be changed. We have to make it easy for small firms to take people on.
FAS has a scheme where young graduates can join companies for up to nine months to gain work experience on no pay, but they retain their unemployment benefits. This scheme should not be limited to young people. It should be open to all the unemployed.
Retraining is what is needed here and it can be done at a fraction of the cost by unleashing this programme to make it as open as possible. For instance, the scheme is restricted to companies of between 10 and 20 employees, which can hire only two additional staff on this basis. If the company can take on five people instead of two, why hold it back?
There is a myth that companies will somehow exploit such a system, but that is nonsense. Providing training within small companies is a hugely expensive task and is engaged in with care. No firm trains up somebody, not least a small firm, to risk seeing them walk out the door in six to nine months.
This is a win-win at little cost to the State. And there is a deeper opportunity here. For more mature businesses, let’s deal with an age-old dilemma that has held back employment — the initial cost of hiring staff.
When a company sees the potential for a new hire, it must weigh up the cost of taking on somebody for the position. Will it be worth it to train them? This is a cost to the company and deters employment.
What if, across Ireland, we adopted the policy that when someone is being hired, they are not hired at full salary from the get-go but would be given incremental increases as they learned their new role?
We could set out a period to full salary within a six-month period. This would have powerful knock-on effects. First, it would make it far more attractive for companies to hire. The expensive cost of early employment would be mitigated. Secondly, it would allow companies to take more risk in hiring as the costs of getting it wrong are reduced. For the potential employee, it gives them a chance to prove to employers that they were a good hire and a worthwhile investment.
Why not do this now? We are paying the dole anyway and the huge positive effect of employment can’t be underestimated. Open the scheme to everyone and see what happens.
I read the same book and probably about the same time you read it too, but times are now radically different back in the 1930’s in the western world as we know it , they did not have the technology we have today at our finger tips , television wasn’t in every house a colour set with HD ( now Sony launched 3D sets two weeks ago) the choice of media was limited , there was no internet , no facebook , no twitter , no Skype, Play Station, the Wii , x box, mobile phones, the i phones ,… Read more »
David, I think you’re a little naive here.A few points. 1. You won’t find many people over the age of 25 who wish to work for free. 2. Its a lose lose situation for the person who works for free and after nine months is out on their ear to make way for a new slave. 3. Shouldn’t companies be asked to re-hire ex-employees if they experience an upturn in business, and pay them a salary? 4. Why can’t companies match the dole payment of €196.00 and give someone a wage to live on? 5. If businesses require free labour,… Read more »
The idea of an incrimental training period sounds great although businesses might see it differently. The highly profitable corporate giant I work for has recently hired in a lot of college graduates on low salarys to do admin work for the sales staff, and in doing so is training them to be sales people, however when they get offered promotion to sales they are not being offered any noticable bump in salary. The company knows that these people are prepared to work for low wages and has no intention of bringing their salary in line with the other sales people.… Read more »
Cannot Swim in The Air – We can only swim in water .When the book David is referring to was published it was in the Age of Pisces ( Water )as was too The New Testament and we all had our hearts on our sleeves then. Today we are in the Age of Aquarius ( Air ) and this is the new age of Invention and Communication and Speed .We are a race of ‘clikers’ as we bleep our mobiles and pc’s.We should not talk about swimming instead we should contemplate in Space Travel and Voyage under the Seas. We… Read more »
I still can’t get around the concept of trying to reduce 430,000 unemployed, or under-employed and Enterprise Ireland rolling out the PR red carpet for a hoped for 900 jobs over 3 years after investing in 73 companies and the IDA saying it will generate 150,000 or is that 200,000? jobs in 4 years. This all sounds optimistic until you take into consideration that each year we churn out new graduates and school leavers onto the job market so the number would still at this point only give the labour force a stand still position. The problem in Ireland is… Read more »
Well, respectfully I disagree on this statement: —- David said: There is a myth that companies will somehow exploit such a system, but that is nonsense. —- On the contrary, I have many examples of internationally acting companies located in Ireland that take advantage of dodgy legislation with no or very little control. When the IT bubble was in full progress, companies like GATEWAY were on the front of schemes that were subsidized by Irish government when it came to employment and help from the government. Let aside tax advantages, they were payed for their unethical HR turnover. From memory,… Read more »
On top, they invented commission schemes for their employees, I say invented, because it was a scam. While the mouth below cocaine powdered nose of the CEO was jabbering hyped up american motivation speeches on a stage and people were expected to applaud like he is the Messiah, the reality was that 95% of staff was severely underpaid, >40% of payrolls were wrong every single months, a payroll clinic had to be installed, a PC computer manufacturer had a payroll system on a mainframe IBM AS400 system and one single operator who did not have a clue. The commission scheme… Read more »
It is a good point, these schemes are useful and its true that many companies don’t just dropped well trained employees after 9 months. However some are really short sighted and will simulataneously drop one staff member while hiring another with a different skill set instead of retraining. The place I work now has an almost annual redundancy round, while at the same time hiring for vacancies in other areas. They seem incapable of thinking more than 3 months down the pipeline. On the other hand, the idea to pay less to starters isn’t a bad one. I agree its… Read more »
The harsh reality of today is not to have any employees. If we must have employees, ideally please provide at zero pay. All must be cost neutral or profit positive. No wages and commission only….what a tangled anxiety driven mess we have. let me introduce you to that old concept of the broomcupboard business. The web site that makes money but gets paid nothing for doing it. The pop / jazz radio station that ticks over during the night making money from ad revenues while employing no one…no one except the guy who chnages the tapes or downloads the new… Read more »
There is a ready supply of 500 million people acrose europe , many of whom are trained, qualified and experienced and are far more employment ready rhan school leavers and grads.Hence, the end of apprenticeships and a return to employment conditions of the eighties.Some companies are paying eastern europeans off the books and ditching them after 6 months.There is nothing to stop a person working for free, an employer wants a recruit who will add max value from minute 1.Sin a bfhuil.
Came across this dramatic article on suicide in Japan in 2009………….agree with the central thrust of the article. A friend of mine is working for free in a solicitors office, glad to get the experience and keep his dole payments…………mortgage, new born baby etc, not ideal but better than sitting at home……………… WE NEED TO GET PEOPLE BACK TO WORK, that has to be the priority if we have any chance of pulling out of this nose dive towards economic oblivion. Article: Desperate Japanese head to ‘suicide forest’ AOKIGAHARA FOREST, Japan (CNN)– Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in… Read more »
Just posting this again as I put it on the tail-end of the last article, think it important also.
See Country number 14, the good old Emerald Isle, saints and sinners, no wonder the American banks are involved, all part of the imperial grand strategy.
US federal deficit: who owns America’s debt — Find out which countries are propping up the US economy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/mar/09/china-federal-deficit-us-america-debt
New York Times ran a very good series of articles on the deleterious impact of unemployment.
Unemployment along with the growing national debt (€1.1 trillion according to figures released by the Central Bank today – see RTE/PRVADA website) are the two M-A-J-O-R issues.
photos in the series – http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/01/03/us/FOODSTAMPS_index.html
other articles in the series – http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/us/series/the_safety_net/index.html
Irish debt stands at €1.1 trillion Wednesday, 10 March 2010 12:06 New figures from the Central Bank show that at the end of January, Irish residents – mostly companies and institutions – had an outstanding debt of €1.1 trillion. Figures for issued debt securities indicate that €790bn worth of this debt is denominated in euro, while the remaining €270bn worth is denominated in foreign currencies. Most of this amount – some €789.1bn – is accounted for by entities based in the IFSC, including companies involved in asset finance, securitisation and treasury management. AdvertisementIrish financial institutions including banks account for €182.6bn… Read more »
Hi David, I agree that solutions to unemployment are needed but its not easy divising them. The country also wont put in schemes to prevent future social costs of alcoholism and depression, etc. I think colin_in_exile and laughingbear do make salient points that there will be nefarious employers who will take advantage of schemes and people. Greed ….. its the same human fault which is omnipresent in the exploitation of workers in small companies as it was in the credit frenzy with bankers and developers and our ‘blind’ government. Its true that more could be done with unemployed people than… Read more »
No political home for advocates of a just society
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0310/1224265978325.html
ff12, “sign off loan” after 4 weeks is an excellent idea and your point of “the cost of traveling to work, petrol vouchers, a bus ticket or food vouchers” is just an absolute minimum that Ireland needs to apply immediately. I was never in that situation I must admit but I’ve given to many people in that situation something towards this bridging period. Then there is the utility bills of course. I realize, being in working environment, you need to have some extra cash to go out with your colleagues for some lunch, a drink every now and then and… Read more »
Cost of Taoiseach’s PR machine spirals ‘out of control’ at €1.6m
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/taxpayer-foots-836410m-pay-bill-for-special-advisers-1982502.html
RE “There is a myth that companies will somehow exploit such a system” 1. The free workers are called “interns” elsewhere, and is unfortunately much abused by companies – by odd coincidence a BBC programme yesterday highlighted “interns anonymous” set up to warn of industrial scam practices in this regard. 2. While it is clearly odd to be paying out benerfits to fit people (there should be retraining/study obligations according to skills held, and unemployed with skills can be involved in training others) the subsidizing of private companies in this way is wrong: Any state subsidies (which temporarily free workforce… Read more »
Haven’t read the article or comments yet, looking forward to it, as David’s getting to the heart of what concerns the masses of people, and therefore these articles will raide his influence among the sheeple.
But first for some inspiration from the tweets of Tony Robbins. I only wish Brian Cowen would murder a rock, like Muhammed Ali, and stop murderin pints, like most of the TDs we have. Sure Jaysus, I can murder pints myself, as can the 500k unemployed now. We need men (and wiminfolk) who can murder ROCKS. These are the times we’re in http://bit.ly/d17y5C
Funnell – what I am reading from these responses seem to ‘dwell on jobs’. If we try to focus on’work’ it might be easier to find a ‘lifestyle’.I am in ‘business’ since 1977 and I have had to adapt every seven years to remain ahead of the pack.I have never been short of work and no matter what I ever want to do I always see lots of work everywhere .I muck down to it and somehow I find a ‘lifestyle’. Mucking around brings with it new opportunities .Wishful thinking is only for faeries.
If we knew and were honest about the base cost for an average graduate, we would probably take a slighty different tack on employment for near zero. Starting after leaving cert, the cost of producing a graduate (from their perspective) is about 12K/year. Say 50K. We still need to keep this guyon board while servicing a debt of some 500/month for the previous 4 years of education/ board. So now if we throw in about 10K a year to keep one self together, we are looking at about 16k a year cost neutral. Add in taxes and we are at… Read more »
Pay dole to communities – not individuals. Employ communities, not individuals.
“In the 1930s, unemployed families and couples stopped socialising, not just because of a lack of money but also because of the embarrassment.” David McWilliams, you are a god among men. Not because you have brains. Not because you say it as it is. But because you have brains, insight and EMPATHY. The vital quality also of de bould Vincent Browne. He’s not always right, is Vincent, but he cares about his fellow people. And in my opinion, nobody deserves to be in journalism or particularly in politics if they don’t have the masses at heart intheir daily decisions. That… Read more »
David you should look at the Freemason’s, an organisation based on the principles of fraternity, what we need is something for people who want to create jobs, based on this organisation… You have master degrees at the top tier of the organisation (people who have actually created jobs by risking their OWN money, sanity, energy, etc, as distinct from those who have been threading water in handy multinational managerial positions for the last number of years until they were recently let go)… At the bottom (apprentice), tier of the organisation, we have new business start ups and the people promoting… Read more »
I’m currently in Perth Australia with my girlfriend and am fast finding out this place isn’t all its cracked up t’be. First of all if you don’t have a car your nearly screwed. Getting around is expensive and the public transport apart from a metro line is pretty crap! I’ve applied for 20 something jobs at this stage,of which i’m reasonably qualified for and only got less than a handful of responses. A lot of which won’t touch you with a ten foot pole if on a holiday visa. Let me rewind a bit, i spent 5 and a half… Read more »
David I think you have not tried to explain to your readers what is work .I believe most readers have a different concept to what is really work .Jobs are something else that were never intended to be for everyone . Were we to find out what does history tell us about the meaning of work we then might find it easier to find contentment in our own minds what it really is. Work is PRAYER . If we understand what is prayer we will understand what is work. Prayer is about ASKING for something until we get it .So… Read more »
Humility is an instrument of Work.
If you get nothing by asking then try again .It always Works.
If you do not know who to ask then find a Temple ….anywhere .
Dont ask the politicians they are mortal beings .Elect them to work only and make them redundant from their Jobs.
don’t let your wife view this video:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
@John Allen, even Johnny Ronan knows good church connections has its rewards:)
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/top-developers-donated-huge-sums-to-vatican-2072679.html
To all readers: –
From Twitter: –
TheBusinessRTE Have you questions for Revenue chairman
Josephine Feehily for an interview on The Business this week? tell us now…
David. BBC1, last night and to night, reality programme called JOBLESS, with celebrities, following them jobless looking for a job. Article above, about the jobless looking for a job. Now, is it just me or do I smell something very very very very very very very very fishy going on. Up until 18 months ago the ‘jobless’ did not register on anyones radar screen. ANd wWALLLLOP suddenly its unemployment, jobless ruination curse upon all. I say this does NOT add up. it does not stack up. Our economy has been hijacked by jailors who are engineering situations that manufactors unemployment.… Read more »
Posters. The ‘controlling elites and interests’ pilfer mass amount of monies from, the state, the taxpayer and the printing presses. The people are thrown into a supposed ‘JOBLESS market’. Please look at those two realities. Is it not obvious,……………………………………………….. Unemployment quadruples in 18 months and we are all to believe it s merely just all a part of the way the economic system is, cooooooooommmmme ooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, we are not buying this cr@p surely. What does it take for people to see the masses are all played like a fiddle over the cliff into the hands of the dennis the menace… Read more »
John ALLEN>
Great post up there at 21.
YOu brilliantly de program all this mind control propaganda over how we all perceive ‘having a job’ jailor mindset.
The econ system we live in constantly BOXING the masses through school and the media boxing the masses into a slave mentality beautifully put together through fudging in the masses mind the difference between WORK and having a JOB>
Was chatting to a guy trying to keep a company afloat the other day. I asked what hope he held out for the NAMA freeing up banks to give credit. He said, it would have precisely the opposite effect and not becasue of small businesses being high risks. He has an office space (mortgaged to the bank) he’s moved out of and wants to rent. He has a prospect. But the bank would prefer to mothball the premises becasue the current rent you can get would in effect put a firm (and downwardly revised) value on the premises as they… Read more »
David, we have looked to Scandinavia before to see how they sorted the banking crises. I have also looked admirably at how they handled the cumbersome burden of retrieving and benefitting from their own natural resources (you don’t gotta diggit Malcolm, you just gotta hang onto the guy’s coat-tails !!)…… How do they solve the disappearance of work abroad? Government provision. Government spending. http://www.globalenvision.org/library/8/1534 “If they want to defend the incomes of the unskilled (or the less motivated), they have four options. The best option is to better educate the unskilled, but this is a cumbersome, time-consuming process that offers… Read more »
In my company, the cost of training is high. It’s typically 6 to 9 months before someone is working productively. We hired lots of graduates in the boom years. A high proportion of them were only interested in working for 12 to 24 months to make money to go travel the world. They didn’t mention this at the outset, of course. They knew they’d easily get jobs when they came back, probably even with us if they asked. We’re an Irish company that started up back in 1990, before the onset of the boom. We set a lot of store… Read more »
I dont hear the public sector unions leaders complaining about unemployment at all. Its always the same complaint on pay and conditions when there is a widespread deflation in the economy.We hear about the hardest hit people, which is fine. However, they know full well that many of their members are very comfortable with their 3 foreign holidays a year. Do the words debt relief or employment schemes ever spring to mind.
Anyway, an idea that might work in the present crisis is a 4 day week that could be made mandatory, with exceptions for people with large debts.
Community spirit and strategic thinking is what is needed to prevent unemployed peoples skills from going unused. Example – an area or town decides it wants to be more attractive to tourists. It`s the little things that can make the difference so they decide to put up a few quirky benches around the town for the tourists to sit and enjoy the sun. So local businesses sponsor the material (with the shoe shop sponsoring a bench in the shape of a shoe outside their premises etc.). The benches are made by local unemployed carpenters who are giving something to their… Read more »
Posters.
Oh dear, lookslike some on here are been conned by the paper money scamarama?!!
Ok, now I told you guys not to drink from the free Fianna Fáil milk cartons they leave at your door……and not to fall asleep! But the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak…………..
@malcolm According to Warren, unemployment impact on families can be more devastating than ever it was pre ’70s, plus rising incomes in the US since that time have been a myth and are disproved by her statistical research. Unemployment in Ireland will hit families harder than ever before as similar conditions exist here. Both partners needed to keep the ship going, one loss of income can sink it! She doesn’t suggest answers plus her research findings will have hardened with the meltdown. But more families than ever before are falling into the poverty trap! Now that the Greenspan deregulation model… Read more »
Folks, The progress report from Farmleigh.
http://bit.ly/bzXgir
That’s it, David! The DoFF reckons that the govt. has fulfilled it’s role following the Farmleigh plans with the 2010 budget.
All done, so.
Folks, my brother (who lives in Sweden) sent me this tonight: Brian Cowen meets with the Queen of England and asks her, how come she has such an efficient Parliament? “Well,” says the Queen, “the most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people.” Cowen frowns “But how do I know the people around me are really intelligent?” The Queen takes a sip of tea. “Oh, that’s easy. You just ask them to answer an intelligent riddle.” The Queen pushes a button. “Please send Gordon Brown in here, would you?” Brown walks into the room. “Yes, my Queen?” The… Read more »
Posters.
200 more billionaires added to the list in 2009.
????????????????!!!!!!
It was a bumper year 2009, right…..
http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/10/news/richest.people/index.htm?section=money_latest&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Here’s what your boss might be doing soon:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8559683.stm
FREE DIRTY KNICKERS!!! Did this catch your eye? Good – now, can anyone help me understand how these NAMA bonds willl work? Trying to work out something in relation to NAMA: * Bank has non-performing developer loan, initially worth $10. * Bank has lien on developer’s assets, which was worth $10 but is now worth $2. * Government buys loan for $7 (30% ‘discount’), and takes lien on assets, which are worth $2. * Government pays the Bank for this loan with a Bond. Bond is worth $7 and pays $1 interest each year for 10 years. Is this last… Read more »
dear all I think it’s worthwhile looking at this link http://www.mof.gov.sg/budget_2009/resilience.html here’s how the SGP govt has dealt with the downturn. Bear in mind that it can do this as over the last few decades of the country’s existence it’s been putting away money in the kitty (which is a euphemism, and the word euphemism itself is understatement). And it paid off its original debts, rather than making debt SOP. Something else to think about, if you want to learn from other countries with respect to housing (SGP learned about social housing from the Israelis, BTW, they even shipped in… Read more »
We should think outside the box and do different things because Ireland will die a slow death if people do not take responsibility and think about their community. They need to sidestep the local and central governments. Change will only come from the bottom up, not from the top down. Looking to your local authorithy for assistance is quite obviously a waste of time, so people within the communities need to work closer together rather than individually. Utilise the unemployed, they are a huge asset. If one or two projects become successful, people will sit up and take notice. They… Read more »
Here is a part of the world economy where the jobs issue is being addressed. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/financial-jobs-abound-in-hong-kong-amid-upturn-2010-03-11 Note – no mention of government programs, smart economy task forces, NAMA style bailouts, bank recapitalization, civil servants refusing to answer phone calls, media personalities making half a million talking about other people’s pain, car dealers telling us how to run industrial policy, social workers running industrial policy (and leading it nowhere) or tycoons residing in Switzerland while their hotels get bailed out by the taxpayer. What are they doing that we are not doing ? Or maybe we are doing stuff that they… Read more »