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Cut costs, but let's save every job possible
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Everybody agrees that recovery from the current global financial crisis will not take place for the next 18 months to two years, and everybody is advocating cost-cutting measures, including job cuts. But we wish to make an urgent call for caution.
While job cuts appear to be pragmatism for the individual company, it could be compounding the contraction of income and demand at the level of national economies. That is why the effectiveness of stimulus packages depends not only on pumping up macroeconomic demand but in maintaining jobs.
It is possible to have an upward shift in aggregate demand which generates little employment. But let us not forget that the bottom line of economic policy is the standard of living of the majority of people.
The Government has clearly demonstrated that it understands this dictum of political survival. The recently announced economic package blends macroeconomic measures and initiatives targeted at specific sectors and industries. That is only a framework in which each and every one of us must play our part by being socially responsible employers and employees.
What we are saying, in other words, is that we should level the inclination to cut expense with compassion, remembering that behind the dollars and cents are people. As the leader of the opposition is fond of saying: "Do not only balance the books."
Every employee is both a worker and a consumer and hence every job lost is a customer lost. Therefore, as a nation we have a civic duty to save every job as far as is humanly possible.
Too many managers and owners think too readily that cost cuts must involve reduced employment. Of course, we are aware that there will be circumstances where it will not be possible to avoid downsizing. However, let redundancy be the last option for cutting expenses and even then, let's try to keep it to the barest minimum.
We cannot afford to be short-sighted and lose the valuable human resources which is the real capacity of any business.
The maintenance of employment also devolves responsibility to the employees and trade unionists. Negotiations in this milieu must accord the highest priority to the preservation of jobs.
Employment is a necessity for human self-actualisation. Without the productive activity of working, personhood cannot be realised. Unemployment creates material deprivation and spiritual despair which undermine the humanity that differentiates us from the base instinct of animals.
In the absence of employment, the decent in us is overwhelmed by the urge to do whatever is necessary to survive, even the illegal, violent and cruel. Our crime rate is already far too high to further expand the environment in which it breeds.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Everybody agrees that recovery from the current global financial crisis will not take place for the next 18 months to two years, and everybody is advocating cost-cutting measures, including job cuts. But we wish to make an urgent call for caution.
While job cuts appear to be pragmatism for the individual company, it could be compounding the contraction of income and demand at the level of national economies. That is why the effectiveness of stimulus packages depends not only on pumping up macroeconomic demand but in maintaining jobs.
It is possible to have an upward shift in aggregate demand which generates little employment. But let us not forget that the bottom line of economic policy is the standard of living of the majority of people.
The Government has clearly demonstrated that it understands this dictum of political survival. The recently announced economic package blends macroeconomic measures and initiatives targeted at specific sectors and industries. That is only a framework in which each and every one of us must play our part by being socially responsible employers and employees.
What we are saying, in other words, is that we should level the inclination to cut expense with compassion, remembering that behind the dollars and cents are people. As the leader of the opposition is fond of saying: "Do not only balance the books."
Every employee is both a worker and a consumer and hence every job lost is a customer lost. Therefore, as a nation we have a civic duty to save every job as far as is humanly possible.
Too many managers and owners think too readily that cost cuts must involve reduced employment. Of course, we are aware that there will be circumstances where it will not be possible to avoid downsizing. However, let redundancy be the last option for cutting expenses and even then, let's try to keep it to the barest minimum.
We cannot afford to be short-sighted and lose the valuable human resources which is the real capacity of any business.
The maintenance of employment also devolves responsibility to the employees and trade unionists. Negotiations in this milieu must accord the highest priority to the preservation of jobs.
Employment is a necessity for human self-actualisation. Without the productive activity of working, personhood cannot be realised. Unemployment creates material deprivation and spiritual despair which undermine the humanity that differentiates us from the base instinct of animals.
In the absence of employment, the decent in us is overwhelmed by the urge to do whatever is necessary to survive, even the illegal, violent and cruel. Our crime rate is already far too high to further expand the environment in which it breeds.