Is Your Job Essential?

Apple store, the busiest in the local shopping mall, yet technology giants continue to lay-off workers. Google is sending jobs Mexico and India.

 "I lost my job."

We try to sympathize with the individual, knowing full well that what we say cannot lessen the pain caused by the feeling of being redundant, thrown in the garbage like Kleenex, after blowing your nose. Goodbye. Your services are not essential.

That is when you become a non-essential worker. I hate to admit it, but I didn’t know the term, until COVID-19. The world was on lockdown in 2020. We did not go to work but we had to eat, so grocery store workers kept it open.

Vaccination. Health workers wore double masks and did it. Government and the World Health Organization (WHO) heaped praises on them. Why? Because what they do is essential, whether there is a pandemic or not. It’s just that we were egotistical to admit it.

IS YOUR JOB ESSENTIAL?

I’m just asking because people who work in the computer industry continue to lose their jobs. I find that hard to understand because technology is the culprit, most of the time. A job that was done by six people is now done by technology.

If you stayed at home during the height of the pandemic and did not go to the office, clothing store or hotel front desk where you work, you are a non-essential worker. What does the future hold, if your job is not essential, like working in a hospital or farming?

Find another job. Highly unlikely because most jobs need hands on experience, or some qualification from a trade school or college. And besides, technology has been nibbling jobs from humans for some time now.

Not only that, business and governments have forced staff to take early retirement in order to keep costs down. They call it downsizing. It’s time for some introspection, is my job essential?

Nonqaba waka Msimang

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