All the political rhetoric from both sides has been driving me crazy lately with all the jobs talk. Since the recession has hit and seems to be ready to play an encore, that has been the hot button issue with everyone. What are our elected officials going to do about creating jobs? In my opinion that is not in their list of responsibilities. I think politicians are the last people we need to be looking to for help on that front. Many of these leaders have never run a business or even held a non tax payer funded job in their life. I think government’s role is to create a safe environment with as little regulatory red tape as possible. Defense, infrastructure, enforcement of the laws are really the main things our taxes should be going for. Sitting back and expecting Uncle Sam to create and hand deliver you a job is not going to end well.
We all need to make sure we are doing what we need to do to bring something valuable to the table to make sure we remain employable. This may evolve over time as new technologies come onto the scene (Just ask a manufacturing line worker who has been replaced by a robotic arm). I understand there are plenty of people unemployed currently that have done all the right things and may have been caught in circumstances beyond their control. But there are plenty who are not doing enough, or anything at all to better their situations.
Think of your job as a boat, sometimes you jump out of the boat (leave for another company or to start your own), sometimes you are pushed out of the boat (laid off, fired), and sometimes the boat just sinks (bankruptcy or company goes out of business). No matter what the circumstance of you ending up in the water is, you better be prepared to swim before you end up in the water. It is pretty hard to learn how to swim while drowning. My point is you may have a job now and things look great, but if you don’t stay up with technology, make sure your education is still relevant, and build and maintain a good network in your field you could end up in the water without any help. When you do (and most of us will at some point in your life) you better be willing and able to swim. I think too many people in this country have not valued education and have not given any thought or made preparations for a plan B. For a long time you could make a middle class living with little or no education. Not so anymore, you have to learn to swim and be ready if you are going to survive.
Our politicians are giving people false hope, telling them they have plenty of life vests for everyone, when in reality they don’t. So do yourself a big favor and don’t sit around waiting for your local politician to come around handing out dream jobs, you may be waiting for a very long time. Make your own luck, take action, keep moving, that is how we will get the economy back on track. We really just need the government to get out of our way and concentrate on providing a good environment to do business in.
Justin Himebaugh leads the accounting department at HRU, (or The Necessary Evil Group as he calls it). A Graduate of the Haworth school of business at Western Michigan University, Justin has specialized in systems implementations and streamlining the accounting function for the companies he has worked with. Besides having a well rounded skill set when it comes to accounting he can still hold his own in the pool if a game of water polo breaks out. You can follow him on Twitter, @necssryevil
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