By Stephen Okhutu
Uganda’s problem is not just unemployment. It extends further to poor pay.
A business manager or public servants who cannot pay for her cost of living have the same challenges as a person who is not employed. Employers have mastered the art of paying in piece rate (in journalism we call it paying per story). Most of these employee paid per piece don’t have contracts.
They are actually living in disguised unemployment as my friend Sulaiman Madada used to call it. It is a situation that can prevent you from thinking how you can find a job or better still create your own job.
The conditions are those of a person formerly employed but deep in the heart of the employer he knows such a person is not employed.
Join me this Wednesday on Dunamis Radio as we discuss possible solutions to this problem. I will be joined by a social entrepreneur Ronald Lutaaya.
Don’t miss in program Embeera ya Leero mu By’enfuna (Modern Economic Trends) every Wednesday from 2200hrs to 0000hrs (Kampala time) on Air at 103fm, online at www.dunamisradio.com and on Mobile from our Android app “Dunamis Radio Uganda” Download this app from your play store.
It is unfortunate that we still have a lot of people who still live with an Industrial age mentality. The world has gone through a number of revolutions from the Stone age, Agrarian, Industrial and now the Information age (call it the digital revolution). It is disappointing however that today we still see people running after their animals just as it was during the Agrarian age. Most disappointing however are those who live with the industrial age mentality during this age, the mentality of looking for jobs.
The industrial revolution came with two major problems and this has caused gross suffering world over; the problem of education and the problem of employment.
I have said this more often that the architects of education did not intend to make you rich. They just wanted to have cheap skilled labor from you in order to operate their machines and businesses. Because at the time of the industrial revolution people were still running after their animals while others were busy in their gardens, few were willing to participate in these industries even if more industries were coming up every day.
The number of people willing to work in these industries was therefore lower than the number of people willing to employ these people. In this case, whoever accepted to learn how to work in these factories was given a job.
This is not the same today where 10,000 teachers go to university to become head teachers in the available 10 schools! 2,000 accountants go to school in order to take up the available 30 jobs. 1 million journalists go to school to work in the only available 100 radio stations.
This is how the problem of poor pay came in. Employers these days have no feelings for these graduates. They believe the job market is over supplied with educated people who still have the industrial age mind.
The mind that “Go to school, get better grades and get a better job” Unlike during the days of the industrial revolution where students were given a hands-on training, today we have people who graduate without even a single skill on what they are supposed to do at their workplace.
Their workplace therefore becomes an extended school. A school where they are paid to learn! This is what makes the employers to despise such graduates leading to lower pay and frequent dismissals from jobs.
—-Let us develop a New Age Mindset——-
It should also be noted that due to the increased number of youths graduating from universities to compete for the little jobs available, employers are now making these elites to work under insulting terms not fitting for a human being. See how many women are missing their maternity leaves!
Loot at young people who walk long distances and spend the whole day at their workplaces without anything to eat! Think about how many of these educated people can’t meet their cost of living even if they are working every day! These are the many challenges we are facing because we are handling new generation problems with old age solutions.
What can be done in these instances? In my opinion I think the solution is in the way we think. We need to think with the information age mindset. Think about how we can solve community problems.
Think about how we can reduce the problem of unemployment than adding more pressure on the problem with our academic qualifications. We should know that in the olden days, a university degree was very important but today it is just a document.
We should hang our academic certificate in our sitting rooms and instead use our heads to solve our community problems. The resource should be our head not a piece of paper we got from these institutions. We should not even expect our leaders to solve the problem of unemployment for us because most of them are still living with an industrial age mentality.
The problem of unemployment affects the youths more. This is because the youths have failed to realize that the information age is their age. They are forcing themselves to live in the industrial age, a period of their grandparents.
They are trying to solve problems in their generation using solutions from the generation of their grandparents. They are young people trying to solve new age generation problems with old age solutions. That is why the problem is still here and it is hitting hard on every youths.
It is disgusting to note that even in the days of sopini.com many youths are still doing business the traditional way. Few of them have listed their shops on sopini leaving majority with traditional industrial age minds to do business just the same way the architects of education did it.
Until we change, the problem is still here and it will hit us hard!
#Okhutu, #WealthSecrets, #CowardsDontGetRIch
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