With so many layoffs, where will tomorrow's jobs come from?

It's time many faced the fact that the giant, protracted global economic change we're experiencing now is not going to return to 'normal. This IS the new normal! It's been three years now of tough economic conditions and still there's no magical recovery in sight. 

Companies around the world continue to lay off staff, and many of the large global banks are seeing increased operating model efficiency (yep, that's the phrase used) as one of the core ways of restoring their profitability. Now operating model efficiency means optimising their technology investments (increasing automation even more meaning fewer jobs are required), optimising their process efficiency (meaning fewer jobs are required to do process workarounds), and optimising their staff complements as a result of improved technology, improves processes, and possibly by means of the elimination of nice-to-have service departments such as innovation and research too. The alarming news in this respect from Bank of America yesterday no doubt left at least 40,000 more people sleeping very uneasily last night as they faced the prospect of losing their jobs. Canada lost jobs for the first time in 5 months in August, while South Africa lost 49,000 jobs in August, the fourth consecutive monthly decline.

Furthermore, there is likely to be both some level of consolidation in the various industries, normally negatively impacting jobs, and some level of divestiture as companies sell off non-core and unprofitable businesses. Indeed, if you find yourself in a role that is neither customer facing, nor in support of someone in a customer-facing position, then your job is probably in danger.

Source: unemployedhelp.net

But what's going to happen to the tens of millions of people around the world that find themselves without jobs now and into the future? What's going to happen to those who depend on these people to create a living? Some will be absorbed into equivalent or perhaps even be tempted to take lower level jobs simply to keep the salary stream rolling. Others will see this as an opportunity to start their own businesses, and others still will have to start their own enterprise merely to survive.

The truth is, many will probably find their skills are out of step with what today's market requires, and worse, some may find their skills redundant. The fact is, there is no longer such a thing as job security, and there probably hasn't been for some time.

This is a problem that governments around the world are looking square in the eye: How to create jobs. However, this is an extended process at a national scale across many countries, and will not instantly result in hundreds of thousands of jobs suddenly becoming available. And, while it seems obvious to most, it's certainly not going to help much if changes in government policy and stimulus measures are not directed at the entire population of the countries in question. It's going to involve the contribution of everyone without discrimination! Furthermore, I have just scanned about 100 sources on job creation and on job creation strategy on the internet across governments and NGOs from around the world, and I'm not surprised that nothing fills me with any any enthusiasm in this respect. It seems like a whole lot of talk, a whole lot of smiles for the camera, a whole lot of finger pointing, and sadly very little in the way of results. Ultimately, government's role is to ensure it facilitates smooth and simple business bureaucracy across the spectrum, from opening a (small) business, to filing tax returns and labour stats, to closing down a business. In many countries, these processes are laborious, cost (labour) intensive and time consuming, often chasing away any potential entrepreneurs, or worse for the economy, that they go underground.

Ultimately, the solution for the most part is going to rest with the individuals I'm afraid, and that means YOU, it means YOU creating a future for yourself in your own business. As an ex business banker, I have been one of the strongest advocates for small business both at home and around the world at various peer-reviewed conferences for many years now. But before you say it's ok for me to say all this while I have a job, note that I believe in it so much that I recently put my money where my mouth is and resigned my relatively comfortable position as EVP (Divisional CEO) in an international public retail / financial services company to take on this challenge again (I have been an entrepreneur before), given the extensive amount of quite obvious global opportunity out there. Indeed, the more confusion and chaos in the economy, the more opportunity there is because the status quo is broken, a perfect opportunity to make new rules. There is just so much change that nothing is normal anymore, and in such an environment, ANYTHING becomes possible, and in so many different configurations, if you just open your eyes. I have personally since opened five businesses, each of them having a global footprint:

• A global social media business, focusing on social media reputation and brand equity risk management 
• A global marketing value chain quantification business, focusing on quantifying the impact of marketing spend on shareholder value creation
• A global advisory on how global businesses can exploit the BRICS and CIVETS economic groupings, particularly in the context of the African Free Trade Zone
• A global management consultancy focusing on customer-centric operating model optimisation
• A global premier events management company, in part serving as a public relations arm for the other four businesses.

The key issue is that none of these needed huge amounts of capital to start up, merely relying on an accurate understanding of the pressure points in the global economy, designing solutions for them, and having the guts to make it happen and to talk to people about what you are doing. It does take quite a considerable amount of manpower to make these all work though, but instead of having a huge payroll which you can ill afford as a startup, I am using global collaborative relationships to make it all happen. So another key issue to watch for is that you have to be creative in the way you look at employing skills. The traditional models aren't necessarily relevant anymore, and they don't necessarily work anymore either. Even the requisite technology platforms are freely hosted on the internet these days, everything from accounting software, to project management and scheduling tools e.g. Zoho. Indeed, it's all certainly a lot easier and a lot cheaper to build a business from scratch than it was a mere 10 years ago! In fact, besides company registration, business cards and a few other minor expenses, you can pretty much start a business for free these days. Why not try it and report back here?  

Ultimately, I don't believe that anyone has an answer to all the questions facing the new unemployed market, but at the same time, I don't think waiting for your government to come up with an answer is the right one at all. It's going to be all up to you to make it happen for yourself. 

There's so much more to say about this, but at the risk of having another blog article that's waaaay to long (I have received some criticism in this regard), perhaps it's time to leave you to your thoughts.