Though policies framed and implemented by the government vis-?-vis unemployment in the state are ridden with loopholes, but there exist at the same time lacunas within out social system that further aggravate the problem. Whatever maybe the case, the problem is an entangled one and introspection leads one to explore the definitive meaning that we as people attach to the term “unemployment” and thereof any untruths or myths that may have collected around it.
While being unemployed is generally understood as “not being in the state of managing to earn one’s living”, it essentially happens to be a rule that human history has woven around itself while evolving the dynamics of economic systems. For if we go to the earliest periods of human history we do not meet with any such requisite engagement. Humans, in ancient times, were not supposedly dependent on systematic livelihood and would sustain themselves as units in nature. Nature does provide, lest we forget. With the rise and fall of civilizations, men and women (women in the latter phases of history) were gradually afflicted by the point survival technique of earning to survive as socio-economic mechanisms evolved. We eventually arrived at a stage where the means of earning a livelihood crossed pathways with our need for association with other individuals. The meshing of our physical and metaphysical circumstances led to the creation of a life system that was proliferated by superfluous and irrational baggage.
This is where the enterprise of human capital was born and exploitation took a deep root. This is where humans began to feel the need for employment, where employment was not merely the means to earn a livelihood but the mechanism of engagement with socio-politico-economic systems and subsystems, where identities were created and nurtured to fetter all notions of freedom.
Today when we talk of unemployment we are talking about the need to be associated, to be recognized, to be entrusted with an identity. We are not wrong for the needs for association, recognition and identity are very vital to the sane development of the “responsible citizen”. Thus when we talk about the problem of unemployment we need to realize that we are not merely dealing with people who need to earn a living but rather with people who are haunted by the circumstance of near non-existence. If we are not able to provide jobs we should apply our minds to the development of mechanisms that would in the least provide some succor to the unemployed. What could that be? I may be asked. Well, as far as my knowledge the youth of the Valley stand alienated. They are segregated to the level of being individuals and individuals only. There is no platform where they could assemble and share thoughts or at least speak their minds out, except for educational institutions which are so very defunct in terms of sorority.
As far as employment understood as the means of earning a livelihood is concerned there are excellent opportunities to seize hold of and many more left to discover. Humans are enterprising living beings and this intrinsic culture of enterprise leads to the cultivation of a system of survival. We could be enterprising farmers, barbers, masons, carpenters, plumbers, shoe makers, florists and what not, but the sad truth is that we are not and perhaps do not want to be. There are people who do these jobs and they are not from amongst us. I think that is because neither we nor the government has a clue to what “employment” is really about.
