Solution to unemployment is not with the conglomerate, but the individual

It used to be that it was okay to start a conversation with a stranger by asking, “So, what do you do?”, because everyone had a job. That simply is no longer the case. It used to be that you were after looks or personality in a prospective relationship. Now you want a partner who has a job.

Unemployment used to be so pervasive, it defied universal definition. The back-in-the-day definition of being employed was all-inclusive. You worked at a known place, earned a predictable salary and had a pension plan, medical aid, company car, whatever, the package.

You had security and there were enough jobs to go around. Often, you just did what your father had done before you, it was your right.

This predictable economic life brought with it peaceful coexistence and equilibrium.

Those days are well gone, no matter where you live. Permeable membranes have replaced sovereign borders. There are no reserved places anymore.

The idea of a job for life may be over. Or are we just at some point in a cycle? Will full employment ever return? Can you expect a job after your education? Is employment a right?

The overwhelming evidence is quite to the contrary.

People are working longer because they’re living longer. That trend isn’t going to reverse.

We may end up living forever. We’ll definitely live longer than we’re economically productive. Dying on the job is as outdated as a job for life; it clogs up the system for new entrants.

Cross-border skills flows affect both sides of the line – low skills in and high skills out, or vice versa. Both affect accessible supply. Technology may have created jobs, but the end-game is to replace fallible humans with tireless, nonunionised robots, isn’t it?

So, the supply side of job creation isn’t encouraging.

The demand side is even more worrying.

People need jobs like perhaps never before. Individuals, the world over, will find themselves incapable of servicing the debt so readily made available to them in the easy money, low interest rate days. The impending reversal of monetary stimulus will result in increasing interest rates to curb inflation – not good for jobs.

Economic value is created when per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth exceeds population growth.

GDP growth worldwide is expected to exceed population growth, but that aggregation hides a wide, negative spread in the mix.

In SA, we don’t have that happy situation. Population is set to continue to grow above GDP (which just turned negative) and that leads to what might be politely described as an economic deficit.

We’re in trouble already and the prospects look bleak.

Children are staying at home longer and grandparents aren’t leaving, three or even four generations cohabitate. Fewer economically productive units have to support more people in the home. The impact on our social wellbeing is disastrous.

The solution will be found in the individual, not the conglomerate. We’d better start looking after ourselves.

The role of the state becomes critical in these circumstances. It will no longer suffice to provide jobs and support.

There simply isn’t enough net economic value being created to tax to fund the so many from the so few. The state must move away from being provider to being enabler: access to capital made easy, fewer regulatory hurdles to clear.

A composite, juicy, irresistible invitation from the formal economy must be sent out to those still without a ticket to the main game, those essentially still trading in a barter economy.

The next decade will be more disruption, decentralisation, disintermediation. Voluntary associations of people and microbusiness units will emerge to produce the economies of scale necessary to compete.

People don’t need help, they need space.

We’ve already seen crowdfunding and alternative currency origination. Everything is a currency – time, bitcoin, coffee, computer space.

We’ll swap what we have for the plug-and-play services we need. Everything is work. All work can be traded.

The age of the conglomerate, the age of central, controlled price capital, who knows, maybe even the age of the banks and the mall is behind us.

Labour is mobile, your office is where you are, your clients and cash flows are in the ether. You are self-employed. There is no unemployment.

THE STATE MUST MOVE AWAY FROM BEING PROVIDER TO BEING ENABLER