Monday, July 28, 2014

Search and work for mindless schemes and useless distractions ...


It's cheeky enough that the reptiles should have this at the top of the digital page, but to then claim it's an EXCLUSIVE ...

The pond dealt with this back in June, thanks to Mike Bolan in The Tasmanian Times, and A miracle of job creation? It's genius!

Take it away Mr Bolan, but allow the pond to fix a typo:

According to Joe Hockey, unemployed youth will have to apply for 40 jobs per month ( SMH ) while other unemployed must apply for 20 or so positions per month. Currently there are some 720,000 unemployed in Australia ( ABS ) competing for about 140,000 vacancies ( ABS ). 
These rather ordinary sounding numbers turn out to represent thrilling opportunities, creating the potential for an administration-led recovery that could power Australia’s future. 
Because the application requirement is created by fiat, there is no need to be tied down by market forces or be inconvenienced by changes in demand. It’s recession proof! 
Some simple maths cracks open the veil on the panoply of opportunities thus created. 
100,000 youth producing 40 applications per month means 4 million applications per month. The remaining 620,000 unemployed (20 applications per month) would deliver a further 12.4 million applications each month, giving a grand total of around 16 million applications per month. 
With those kinds of numbers each month, the private sector and government will urgently need more staff to process, sort and respond to those applications, as well as keep records in case of Centrelink checking on the individual unemployed. It’s a veritable miracle of job creation.
We can expect the vacancy rate to increase markedly as these requirements hit the private and public sectors. Furthermore if all applications (or even most) were required to be sent by mail, Australia Post and the pulp & paper industry could be saved overnight! If electronic lodgement was used then that would represent a huge business boost for the NBN. By a stroke of Kevin Andrew’s pen. 
To review, 16 million applications per month is 192 million applications per year (remember the actual number of vacancies doesn’t matter, what’s important is that there are plenty of unemployed to send applications). If we allow that one person could reasonably review 50 applications per day (less if replies had to be written) or 12,500 per year, that would result in a need for over 15,000 people just to process the applications!!! Each of them would need supervision, management, training, quality assurance, safety and human resources leading to total employment of around 25,000! 
If those activities were conducted by the federal government (business might not have the time available) then 25,000 new public service jobs would be created! That’s nearly an 18% increase in vacancies created by the stroke of a pen. It would only take 40 more initiatives of that scope to achieve Tony Abbott’s 1 million new jobs. Add the 100,000 training places needed to support “Earn or learn” and we see a rosy future indeed.

Satire aside, here's what will happen. Genuine young employment seekers will send out a blizzard, a snow storm of job applications.

Most of the time they won't even get the courtesy of a reply, let alone a rejection letter, let alone any kind of interest. They will learn that the machine is cruel and indifferent, and they will become alienated, perhaps more alienated than they've already become.

Employers won't mind. They'll just bin the applications.

And then what will happen? Well this cycle will be repeated endlessly, profoundly alienating, and disheartening as it is, and soon enough the youff of today will be taking to the streets and resorting to violence, as long ago foreshadowed:




It reminds the pond of that Australian classic in which a certain Thatcher runs a a reformist camp, a classic example of government and action:

 Thatcher: Some of the jobs you will be asked to do may seem pointless and unproductive. However you must learn to do them willingly because the program has been devised for your own good. Your re-education depends on your unquestioning acceptance of any and every order given by the state. You must learn to walk before you can run, and only when you can respond automatically to discipline will you be fit to take your places again in our great society. Never forget freedom is obedience, obedience is work, work is life … 

And then?

Thatcher: You will remember our motto 'Freedom is obedience, obedience is work, work is life'. Well, now understand, once and for all, that the reverse is also true: disobedience is treason, treason is a crime, crime will be punished. Over to you Mr Ritter …

Sorry, that's not quite correct: Over to you Mr Andrews ...


3 comments:

  1. I love a hair brained scheme in the morning; Like when the Govt.(mid '80's) sent teams of "bludgers" to the Catani Gardens in St.Kilda, armed with a concrete mixer,buckets and trowels to work on the rapid destruction programme of the amazing volcanic rock seaward wall,replete with fine Edwardian pintuck jointing. The team did a fine job of smear filling the whole fucking 200 odd metres of stonework. Everyone seemed so pleased,from management down.I'm sure Catani was turning in his grave.
    https://www.onmydoorstep.com.au/heritage-listing/1997/catani-gardens

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  2. I nice touch would be to send a copy of each job application to your cetrelink contact ,just to prove you were indeed applying, a copy to Kevin Andrews because he cares for your welfare and just for luck, one to Jolly Joe to prove you were not leaning.

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    1. This is a most excellent idea, and the pond would like to propose that in addition applicants should dig a deep hole outside the offices of any federal government department to hand, and then fill it in again, and repeat as necessary, as a way of demonstrating their enthusiasm for hard work ... if it's good enough for Catani, it's good enough for all ...

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