The curse of unemployment can be experienced in our growing economy from a long while and constructive attempts are being taken towards this issue consistently but there is something that has overpowered unemployment with a great pace in last few decades and that catastrophic disgrace is called UNDEREMPLOYMENT.
Where underemployment has given a nominal source of bread winning opportunity to the vulnerable job seekers, it has suppressed the creativity, efficiency, passion, dedication and capabilities of many on the other hand. But a million dollar question that arises is "Is underemployment a new unemployment?” I say no to this because I take the former as a far more serious concern than the latter.
Unemployment is a condition where a person has unavailability of job but has a scope to get one which fits his skill set, qualification and desire provided he consistently improves his qualities and keep trying for an opportunity. Though, it might take comparatively longer span of time but will end up building a meaningful career that returns appreciable satisfaction, money and happiness to make the person feel well content for the rest of his life.
But if we talk about the condition of underemployment, the job seeker compromises a narrow path as his destiny and starts making his way towards it. Initially, it provides an illusion of being settled and employed but it takes no longer to display its true colours. There are many things that come into picture simultaneously like equity theory where employees compare relational satisfaction within interpersonal relationships within the firm and start perceiving the job to be under-delivering and this is where the seed of detachment from the work is sown.
According to an old adage, "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life." But, underemployment deviates the person from his passion, dreams and desires to spend a lifeless professional life ahead.
FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR UNDEREMPLOYMENTIn a so-called well established education system of India, we apparently, constrain ourself too much into a conventional paradigm of the society. We rarely follow our dreams and cast a path for ourselves forecasting our goals. This results in detachment from our field in succeeding few years and we lose our passion and determination. Right after we get detached from our field, we end up taking the turn that the life makes and in most of the cases we become a victim of underemployment. You can't expect people to walk in your shoes and as vice-versa; even you can't walk in their shoes because if you do so, it means you are living their life, not yours. It has been learnt that youth are mostly hit by it because they are the one who are most vulnerable and susceptible to this. According to a survey, employees in the age limit of 20 - 29 are largest victim of underemployment due to the above reason.
CONSEQUENCES OF UNDEREMPLOYMENTThere is a great cost that our country is paying off for this situation. Underemployment, when causes dissatisfaction among employees, they start finding an alternative way as they feel whatever comes next will at least be better than what they have been doing and this shoots up the attrition rate tremendously. “The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill” approach makes them resign and hence, all the training that they have been lately provided go to vain and the same has now to be imparted to their replacements. As a matter of fact,
1. 40% of the current work force in India will quit their job in the next 6 months and
2. Cost of hiring a new employee is 7 times more than retaining an old employee.
The cost of employee also adds up to some hidden costs. When employees resign from the company, productivity deteriorates for a period of time until the new joiner learns his part and this period can also be a threat of losing customer which can hamper the overall revenue as well.
ROLE OF STARTUPS IN ERADICATING UNDEREMPLOYMENTYoung Firms Drive Job Growth and Economic Dynamism• New businesses account for nearly all net new job creation and almost 20 percent of gross job creation, whereas small businesses do not have a significant impact on job growth when age is accounted for.
• Companies less than one year old have created an average of 1.5 million jobs per year over the past three decades.
• Many young firms exhibit an “up or out” dynamic, in which innovative and successful firms grow rapidly and become a wellspring of job and economic growth, or quickly fail and exit the market, allowing capital to be put to more productive uses.
• Young firms were hit hard during the Great Recession. Even still, from 2006 to 2009, young and small firms (fewer than five years old and twenty employees) remained a positive source of net employment growth (8.6 percent), whereas older and larger firms shed more jobs than they created.
Declining Startup Rates Threaten Growth• New businesses represent a declining share of the business community. According to Census data, new firms represented as much as 16 percent of all firms in the late 1970s. By 2011, that share had declined to 8 percent.
• Not only are there fewer new firms, but those startups that do exist are creating fewer jobs. The gross number of jobs created by new firms fell by more than two million between 2005 and 2010.
• Startup activity has been subdued across the country. Firm entry rates were lower between 2009 and 2011 than they were between 1978 and 1980 in every state and Metropolitan Statistical Area except one.
WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?We talk about the tragic statistics of entrepreneurial success rate in India, but we need to give it a second thought over the grass root of its cause. In a country like India, if we start our career with an underemployed job and if we do not expertise in some specific domain, if we lack interest, dedication, creativity and zeal towards one thing, what kind of entrepreneur do we expect our people to become.
Hence, I find it very feasible to keep patience and to maintain the consistency of dedication in the starting few days of professional life and to catch a right profile that will flourish till eternity and our startups can play a very significant role towards this...
Guest Author
This is Samrat Sharma. He lives in Delhi. He is a mechanical engineer and currently pursuing MBA. He has a work experience of two years as a production manager at JSW Steel Ltd. He loves to travel, sing, play synthesizer and write.
