New Jobs? What about the Old Ones?

New Jobs? What about the Old Ones?

 JBH Wonders, February 2012

These days there is much rant in Washington DC and other govern(mental) offices about “…creating jobs…”. For now let us put aside the asinine notion that government entities can “create” productive and meaningful jobs. That is a well-covered topic that I will not go into here.

My question is, what about the old jobs? Didn’t the multitude of unemployed folks used to have a job? What happened to those jobs? They either got laid off with little hope of getting recalled or else their position was terminated due to “downsizing”. Or worse yet, the company had to go out of business. In most cases these things occur when the company is struggling to make a profit. In any case, people are out of the work they use to do. I would say that most would be happy to get their old job back instead of looking for a new one.

My guess is that the same economic conditions and government actions, policies, laws, restrictions, (on to nausea) that is impeding the “creation of new jobs” is also preventing the old ones from coming back.

We have in America a highly skilled and a highly experienced work force that has been displaced from a productive environment and is now sitting on its hands. That’s after a failure to find meaningful work in their field of expertise. Others have humbled themselves (out of necessity perhaps) to work at jobs that were once left to recent high school graduates and college students. This is also a well-published topic and I will not expound upon it here.

So it makes sense to me that the old jobs could come back if the feds would stop the pretentious actions of trying to fix things. The problems and solutions seem obvious to me and many others. There are numerous articles about what can be done. Our representatives/”leaders” are not paying attention. Or else they are following some agenda and everything is going according to plan. There are many articles on that speculation also.

For over thirty years I worked at company with less than fifty employees. So this company would probably be labeled as a “small business”. One Thursday afternoon I was called into the office and was kindly told that I was being laid off due to a lack of work. I already knew that the company was struggling due to a major decline in business. As I was clearing my desk the president of the company told me “…this insurance is killing me”. I thought that an odd thing to say after he just put me out of work. But as time went on I began to understand more.

One thing that was “discussed” during the lay-off meeting was health insurance. I would be losing that along with the paycheck. So they showed me something called “Cobra” or some such. I had to sign a paper signifying that I was made aware of this alternate health insurance plan. I suspect that there is some law requiring companies to inform people of insurance alternates when they are losing their job. There are similar laws that require (read demand/do-it-or-else) companies to provide insurance for their employees.

So the last two paragraphs were written to set up this paragraph. When I no longer had an income stream, the last thing on my mind was insurance. (Remember the four vital things for survival? Breathable air, water, food, shelter). On a similar note, there is currently a big to-do in Washington DC about “Obama Care”/National Health care”. All of this stink concerning  insurance is so much BS that it is difficult to walk around. It is one of many issues preventing old jobs from coming back and new ones from growing. “This insurance is killing me” as I was told once. People need an income stream to purchase necessities. Paying insurance premiums is a lot like gambling. But like in any other game of chance, you can’t play unless you can afford it.

So in conclusion: Yes we need new jobs for college and high school gradates. New jobs are also needed for military members who are returning to the public arena. (Hopefully the battle hardened ones will not seek a law enforcement position. But that is a different topic for a different time.)

But it would be just dandy if the companies that have survived this economic disaster could call back their faithful and experienced workers of old. The economy would have to head toward a real recovery however. A recovery that is obvious to everyone instead of the lies and misinformation coming from politicians.