Jobs, jobs, jobs is all we need
By Victor Angula |
This past week a list was shared on social media, a list of countries with the highest unemployment.
I don’t know who compiled such a list and how recent the information is, but I’m sure that the list is closer to the reality.
The list puts South Africa at the top of countries with the highest unemployment in the world (34.4%), while Namibia is second with an unemployment rate of 33.4%.
I don’t know about other countries, but I know that unemployment in Namibia is very high. And nobody is doing anything about it. Even politicians who are good at making promises, they no longer put the issue of fighting unemployment on the list of their promises.
That is how dire the situation is.
But employment-creation is supposed to be one of the most important and urgent things on the table of a public official. Many things can be deferred or postponed, but employment-creation is one of the most urgent matters.
This is so because one of the great tasks of a political leader is to make people earn a living. Living must be earned. Living must be earned through productive living. The major task of a politician is to make people productive and earn their living. Even in the “land of milk and honey” the people have to earn their living through productive work.
For a political leader there is nothing to be proud of if your people are unemployed and unable to earn and justify their living.
No matter what you do, and it doesn’t matter the level of your education, or the type of ideology you believe in, if your people are unemployed there is no way for them to escape the cycle of poverty or get to a position where they live a life of dignity.
Even in a so-called welfare state, dignity can only be provided to people if most people in that society don’t need the state’s welfare since they have gainful employment which makes them earn their living. Welfare doesn’t work in a society where most of the people need it.
And it’s jobs the people need. When people move to urban areas it’s jobs they are looking for.
Political leaders do make promises, and they have to make promises if they still are alive in their jobs. Politicians, even at local level, always have a hat full of promises for all things people want and need. But the only important thing the people need is jobs. People want to work. People want a welfare state only if they don’t have jobs. People want free food only if they don’t have jobs.
And people will engage in all kinds of nuisance such as creating political instability or engaging in criminal violence only if they don’t have jobs.
Jobs are that critical. Without productive employment even life itself becomes meaningless. A human being’s worth is expressed and seen through his or her work.
