As owners cut costs, jobs lose

As owners cut costs, jobs lose

Much is being said today about jobs or rather lack of jobs. There are many reasons for the lack of jobs including the slow economic conditions throughout most of the entire world. That affects the ability of people to purchase, which then keeps production low creating a circular condition which keeps spinning away.

Then we have the idea of making more money available for the people to buy, and thus the producer to need more workers and thereby preserve the circle and provide more jobs.

But I don’t read or hear much of why this apparently is not working. Can it be that because the goal of the business owner today is to make a profit and that the cost of labor and the benefits connected with it is the highest item on his budget that the producer is doing his utmost to reduce labor costs and increase production without adding jobs? The producer is using any means available to provide the profit he is seeking and needs to exist. This includes automation and robots, work changes, job combining, etc. In other words, any changes that will reduce jobs. This is not a circular problem, but certainly is a stumbling block to the creation of jobs.

Maybe our attention should be given to this dilemma before any more giveaways without guaranteed results. We hear of the hourly rate of a job, but do we realize that the added costs of doing business because of that job such as workman’s compensation, unemployment costs; benefits attached to the job such as vacations, holidays, hospitalization, sick pay etc. can add up to 75 percent more in labor costs? How many employers are paying overtime when necessary rather than add new employees which bring more extra baggage to the cost of the product?

I’m glad my job hunting days are over — I’m sure it is not fun.

Gordon Mitchell, Brookfield