Self Employment: A way for Self Reliance
Luckily the two biggest sectors of employment in our country are still self-organized. It is the agriculture sector and the construction sector. If these two sectors can run successfully on principles of self-reliance then other sectors including software and other services sectors can run successfully in a self-organized way. — Alok Singh
The old saying is “uttam khetee madhyam baan, nikrsht chaakaree, bheekh nidaan”. The modern saying is ‘job market’ i.e. Prepare self to buy the job. The market-driven economy has over a period of time labeled the job itself as a market, and the frequent use of the term supports it. The alternative to a market-driven economy is a command or government-driven economy and society-driven economy. Self-reliance can be attained in a social economy. In a market-driven economy, there is no care for society while in a command-driven economy, there is no care for an individual. The socially driven economy is tough to achieve in a zero or low-tariff trading globalized world. The education import bill of our country is rising at an alarming rate. It can be extrapolated to understand that having a job is like owning an asset. So today’s job behaves as an asset. The education expense is the price to own the asset.
In any market, the buyer and seller meet and negotiate the deal. The best offer is accepted and the rest is rejected. It is a zero-sum game. The job in the job market is more about networks, connections, eliteness, and fraternity rather than about talent and skills. This is reflected in the job profile of alumni of the Indian Institute of Technologies. The IITians having studied diverse branches of engineering at a highly subsidized rate whose costs are borne by the taxpayers of the country, almost always aspired for a job in information and computer technology companies. This is happening for more than two decades. This is also reflected in the profile of the branch of engineering that an employee of the information or computer technology companies studied. Whether it is civil engineering or mechanical engineering or textile engineering or chemical engineering or any other branch of engineering, these people disowned their training and worked for a company for which they were not trained initially. The IITians relied on the label of brand IIT rather than the label of a branch of engineering that they studied. This was a dual loss to the nation. The country was deprived of required civil or mechanical or textile or other branches of engineering and at the same time, the incurred cost of training was completely lost. If the students do not take admission to a particular department then the department in that college is closed, but nothing was done to control the migration of students trained in one particular branch of engineering to completely work in a new job profile, and that too just for the sake of dollars. The shoulders were broken. This argument should not be countered with the necessity of interdisciplinary research and work profile. The products of the best institutions in our country were diverted to one geographical area i.e. Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is all about computer technology which today drives social media, all types of business, and finance. Today Silicon Valley is shrinking. The big names of Silicon Valley like Netflix, Amazon, Alphabet i.e. Google, Meta i.e. Facebook, and Microsoft are facing turbulences in managing their expense for expanding human resources. They sought solutions in either lying off or freezing new recruitments. The victims are new job seekers who spent millions of money on their education to get a job there. The lower and middle-level human resources are the initial people in an organization to lose their job. In our own country, the education technology companies which hired too many during the pandemic are now laying off. Taxi aggregators, hotel room aggregators, and much other information technology-driven companies have laid off in big numbers.
The solution demands a new attitude. The approach should be of job givers rather than job seekers. The role of the policymakers is to timely figure out such conspiracies that destruct the social face of livelihood. The new recruitee is easy prey who instead of upgrading their skills over a lengthier period of time in their original domain works for the sector which offers them a comparatively higher initial salary. The final-year students do face the dilemma of either joining a job or studying higher education. Within higher education, there is a choice of opting for subjects of interest or opting for subjects that offer higher future salaries. In this trade-off of money versus others, the unstable money wins i.e. the interest in work and quality of life is compromised. But the recent unfavorable trends of Silicon Valley are again forcing youngsters to visualize their career path more thoughtfully and analyze their skills more carefully. It has resulted in many bright youngsters opting for either joining startups or starting their own startups. Self-employment is for everyone. Talent is not reflected in education only; it can be reflected in many other sectors which do not require education from elite institutions. Talent is reflected in many ways. So, anyone having interest and talent should prefer self-employment during the early days of their productive life. From a few months to a few years, a job can be treated like an extended internship program.
The task for each one is to create a job for self by figuring out the gap and fulfilling it. The New Education Policy promoted by the union government of India is a reinforcement of the idea of self-reliance in livelihood through self-employment. The focus on vocational training and mother tongue as a medium of instruction is also in one way or the other the foundation for self-reliance in jobs through self-employment.
There was a generation that felt secure in government jobs, followed by a generation that aspired for private jobs and today’s generation launches startups and practices entrepreneurship. The union government has done what the best it can offer for the startup ecosystem. The geopolitics also favors us and the strong leadership of the nation is being acknowledged worldwide and the trade rules are no more a one-way compulsion. The world listens to us in trade negotiations.
Luckily the two biggest sectors of employment in our country are still self-organized. It is the agriculture sector and the construction sector. If these two sectors can run successfully on principles of self-reliance then other sectors including software and other services sectors can run successfully in a self-organized way.
(Alok Singh is a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Management Indore, a freelancer academician, and associated with AGET Business School, Jhajjar.)
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