Getting Started

Computerisation : Mechanisation : Rationalisation : Standardisation: Consolidation : Realignment : Downsizing : Cut Backs



These words, along with many others like them, some new, some traditional and some that are being used in a new context are words that have come to mean unemployment to thousands of people in all trades, industries and professions, across a broad and ever widening spectrum.


These words have come to mean unemployment on a scale that a few years ago would have been unimaginable.



Unemployment has become a word that strikes fear into the people of our country, and we are not suffering alone; Europe is suffering. The United States, the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth and traditionally known as the land of opportunity, is suffering and the indications are that the trend will continue for the foreseeable future.


Millions of jobs have disappeared from all but a few corners of the civilized world.

Unemployment is not going to go away. No politician with a grain of common sense would claim to have a formula or policy that would eradicate this scourge that has come about over the last decade. No political party would dare to include the eradication of the curse of unemployment in its election manifesto. To do so would be political suicide. They will all claim to be able to reduce it, some more than others, but eradicate it they cannot.

Unemployment strikes at different sections of the population in different ways.






Jobs for life are all but gone, secure jobs as they were called.


Trade unions have become impotent and are for the most part fighting a losing battle in their struggle to preserve jobs. The areas where employees could take it for granted they had jobs for life are no more.






The employment marketplace has been turned upside down. Those who have held the same job with the same company for years find it hardest to obtain employment elsewhere. People who have never needed to look for jobs do not know the market value of their skills and experience. Worse still they do not know where to look for prospective employers who are prepared to pay good money for those skills and experience.

Note the words, " market value". Today everything has a market value. Mrs Thatcher laid heavy emphasis on the word "market" and the melody, or malady if you prefer, lingers on. The phrases "market forces" and "market led" were, and still are, on every politician's lips be they for or against the market driven economy.