Worth in the economy

After many hours put into job search (albeit being currently "gainfully" employed), one always comes away from the process feeling that much more disheartened and even a tad depressed. That is to say one is an average jobseeker and not the average high-flyer with a glowing CV having graduated from the Ivy League that headhunters are constantly on the look out for. 

The feeling is not on account of negativity that one will not have the potential of being employed ever again, but as a result of fate lying completely in the hands of others. Such is the social condition today. 

A recent conversation with a retiree of the bygone generation who held a rather prestigious post in a reputable firm without having had much resources to begin with, reinforced my view that the current generation 'has it worse'. This was explicitly expressed by said individual in the context of simply 'owning a house', on top of what I was thinking to myself.

It was not this difficult when the majority of the population did not have a university education. Randomly pick anyone on the street nowadays and more often than not, they'd name the fancy university they attended with perhaps an unheard-of degree title too. 

I'd decided to write this post when I chanced upon an article entirely unrelated to my initial Google search: "Commentary: Employers who lowball jobseekers based on last-drawn salaries are shooting themselves in the foot".

To be honest, the phenomenon described in the article did not mushroom because there's a pandemic. This has been acknowledged. Yet, I find it extremely sad that it requires a global crisis on this massive a scale for such issues to come under the spotlight in this country. 

Being from a field with supposedly very little "marketable" value and having done a good bunch of odd jobs—retail, F&B, security, admin etc. to put myself through school, I can very well say that "lowballing" did not arise in 2020 when the world went into full-blown catastrophe mode. It is deep-rooted in the capitalist psyche to profit off "unskilled" labour and human desperation to survive. It dates back to time immemorial. 

In reality, the blue-collared and white-collared worlds look very different. One is characterised by tangible hard work, visible sweat and blood, quantifiable work done and on occasions actual risks to life; the other often being digitally entrenched, mentally-taxing, with low or little physical risks/direct contribution to anyone per se. This does not take into account the healthcare sector (or any other anomalies for that matter), but majority of the corporate BS that dominate the "developed" world today. 

Some time back I took up a short event security job to break the monotony and earn some extra cash. For those few days, I was required to start travelling to the work location in the wee hours of the morning. Using the public transport before 6am, it struck me how many uniformed, blue-collared workers have to toil before daybreak packing an entire double-decker bus to the brim.

Yet, these are the very jobs that the local population, particularly the more educated segments, often shun. Parents discourage their children from "ending up" in such jobs, or even use these jobs as a threat to get their children to study harder. Why? Simply because the compensation of such jobs mostly does not merit the magnitude of work, time, risks, life invested into them. 

Looking back at the annual statistics of workplace injuries and deaths, it is obvious which categories of the workforce are the most at-risk. Converse to being renumerated proportionally to the conditions of their work, these are the very groups who get subjugated into poor living conditions and forced to teeter on the edges of minimum wage.

The above is only one of the many ways employees have been traditionally lowballed into lower worth than they would have if money and status weren't part of the equation. 

Giulio Tremonti's infamous remark in 2010 on the role of culture that eventually evolved into "con la cultura non si mangia" spells it all. In 2014, Obama encouraged students to pursue economics, not art history. Politics aside, there is certain truth to what both men preach. If wealth and fame are what one is pursuing, avoid the arts and culture. 

I'm not talking about the top few percent of artistes/celebrities because naturally, most will not become the next Jay-Z or Wiz Khalifa. In fact, neither of them sat through countless hours of lectures or crammed for pointless exams and most importantly, never took out an eye-watering amount of loan to foot exorbitant tuition fees to learn how to make music and rap. 

At best, an average arts graduate will end up not being an artist, musician, museum curator, archaeologist etc.—whatever they naively thought they'd fulfil their lofty life dreams doing for the rest of their smooth-sailing lives after graduation. 

Most would end up in an unrelated field in support/administrative roles to scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors etc. and be paid half or less of the salaries the protagonists in these work settings are getting. Of course, this is in spite of the fact that in most cases, they attended university an equal number of years (4 years with honours), with comparable number of years in work experience. 

This is the second group which I can name commonly getting lowballed.

Lowballing does not happen across the board. Lowballing happens only when employers know they can. And this, unfortunately, happens on the rung where most actual work is done, where supply outstrips the demand, where knowledge acquired is not quantifiable, and ultimately, where employers can sniff desperation.

"Yet it [the pandemic] has also refocused the minds of global leaders on the fundamental value of human life, human potential and human livelihoods. This is the window of opportunity to invest in our most precious asset: our human capital," says the Commentary article. No, this is at best idealistic and at worst out-of-touch with reality. 

In actual fact, only those who experience a challenge to their self-worth on a daily basis will constantly be reminded of this glaring fact. As the pandemic winds down, the rest will retreat back into their cushy corporate swivel chairs sufficient to put them through their lives without having to question too much.