By: Azfar

Azfar — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:11:02 +0000

Gilbert, I don’t mean to be cynical but as well-intentioned as your article may be, it borders on being a little insensitive to the unemployed, or those who have recently been retrenched.
While it is true that we all want our fellow Singaporeans to be empowered, whether in employment or out of it, it is equally important to have a proper perspective on how unemployment affects them. Most of the time, unemployment comes as an unwanted circumstance – people get retrenched, workers are fired, factories relocate, redundancy-reduction measures are taken,etc. Hardly would any unemployed person view his state of non-work as ‘new found free time’. The tone of your article appears to be influenced by this ‘free time’ perspective.
With bills to pay, mouths to feed and loans to settle, the unemployed wouldn’t view their state as ‘free’ nor would they be inclined to view their experience as ‘unique’ and part of a learning process. When your survival is threatened, you’re not going to sit by and think of the lessons life is throwing at you. There is no denying that one can take that perspective, but wouldn’t it be better to urge them to empower themselves for employment? That is, go out there, retrain or what not, and find a job as soon as possible(or start a business, self-employ,etc). In modern,urban capitalist societies, a job is your ticket to other forms of freedom. (Unless you’re a monk or you happen to practice detachment)
Kudos to you for attempting to write an uplifting article for the unemployed and taking a very positive perspective on unemployment. I do hope that unemployment decreases in Singapore as time goes by but in the meantime, as a self-employed worker myself, I do hope Singaporeans take unemployment with grit and fight it out in the job market to ensure that the mouths are fed and lives are not disrupted.

Comments on: Life’s learning curve

By: Azfar