Someone told me a friend of his has been unemployed for more than a year and recently approached him for a loan.
Apparently, the kind of work his friend was doing is increasingly hard to find.
It sounds to me like another case of structural unemployment.
It brings to mind a comment I made not too long ago here in my blog:
"The world has been disrupted and will continue to be disrupted by technology.
"It is happening faster than ever.
"If we were to go to sleep and wake up 5 or 10 years later, we might get a shock.
"Many will lose their jobs because of the disruption.
"The old economy is under siege.
"I know because I belong to the old economy.
"If I am not financially healthy today, I would be very worried."
Being financially literate is important but being financially savvy is even more important.
However, there is an even more important point of this blog post.
We should be pragmatic.
This person has been offered a job in a different industry but he rejected.
It is a "dirty" job, apparently, and doesn't pay as well as his old job.
Is having face more important than having food on the table?
Related posts:
1. Be a plumber or be unemployed?
2. Compared to anger, shame is worse.
Ya, me also in the forced early retirement group of Gen X'ers, since 2010 (7 yrs in the wilderness so far!). Thank god my parents are still healthy & both covered by the old-time pension with lifetime medical. Thankful also for my investment dividends which are more than enough to cover all my expenses. Luckily didn't panic & sell at the lows in 2008/2009 and now more than recovered to beyond the 2007 highs. Those were the dark & lean times. Going forward will do tactical asset allocation if markets start to crash, in order to preserve capital & then go for good bargains. No more blindly buy & hold with balls of steel like before (even though those were very good assets & companies). Did contract assignments & temp jobs, but more trouble than they're worth.
ReplyDeleteHi Spur,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experience. :)
Stiff upper lip and soldier on! ;)
Nowadays very common to hear the phrase "No Money No Talk". No money really cannot survive since food need $ to purchase. Unless we grow vegetables and potatoes ourselves.
ReplyDeleteHi Mao Mao,
ReplyDeleteWhen I tell people I spend quite a bit of time gardening, most of them would say they don't like gardening. I wonder what they would say about farming. ;p
Reader says...
ReplyDeleteQ2 unemployment & retrenchment went up.
More competition for jobs.
Cannot think we are invincible.