Job Insecurity

For some reason, I've been reading a lot of articles about job insecurity. Not the lack of employment. People who live with job insecurity are employed. However, their employment is by no means stable. They work as freelancers or adjuncts or on short-term contract basis. And while there have always been certain jobs that functioned like this, the economy is heading toward a situation where it's even more that way, even with jobs that used to be full-time employment, with strong long-term contracts, benefits, and reasonable expectation of security.

I think the best example I can give of this is my brother and his wife. My brother is an RN and his wife is a special ed teacher. Fifteen years ago, when they were starting to plan their lives together, they both agreed that if they were going to invest in college educations, it would be for careers that would be secure. I remember my sister-in-law telling me how she couldn't fathom a world where people wouldn't want teachers and nurses. At the time, I agreed with her.

Now though, my brother's hospital is in a constant state of possibly shutting down. People get fired on a daily basis and everyone is fearful. This, of course, means that no one rocks the boat. No one asks for raises. No one asks for special time off. No one does anything to possibly jeopardize their situation because, at a fundamental level, they do not feel valued as employees.

In a society that bases a great deal of personal gratification in the concept of being good at their job and valued for it, this is taking a large toll on  the psyche of the nation. I can't help but wonder if the rise of radicalized personal identity politics isn't the result of this. People CAN no longer define themselves by their jobs, so they have to do so by their political ideals.

I live in a fairly rural area with very few private schools, so in some ways my sister-in-law's situation is more stable than most public school teachers, but she still gets jacked around a lot. The teachers across the state basically have to riot to get the state government to give them enough money to function. Programs are cut all the time. Teachers are asked to have greater and greater numbers of students in their classes. Plus, she has to purchase most of her own supplies and gets very little outside support. And because the system is so stretched, again, like my brother, she can't easily ask for a raise or any considerations. Most of the value she feels from her job is based on public perception and we all know that grows less and less for our educators every day.

So now we have a society where most professional people begin their careers with tons of student loan debt and jobs that lack the security to even justify paying for their degrees. At the same time, more and more careers, many of which that used to just require some technical training, are now insisting on a BA at the very least. Jobs are insecure, to gain one will put you in debt, and the rest of your life will be spent in a state of fear.

I honestly have no idea why nation would view this as a safe way to treat its people.