Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2012, in the middle of the Spanish crisis and just after the 2012 labour reform. The forecast that unemployment would probably reach 6 million and the description of the job market reflect that moment.
In the current situation there are only two alternatives: look for a job or create a job (start a business). In the past, people used to say that working for someone else saved you trouble: you had a fixed salary at the end of the month, set hours and, in short, few headaches.
Running your own business, on the other hand, as we all know, means no set hours, no guaranteed salary at the end of the month, and so on.
Problem 1: there are hardly any jobs
The first problem is very clear: there are hardly any jobs, and as time goes on, at least in Spain, jobs will keep being destroyed until unemployment probably reaches 6 million. Anyone who says otherwise may not be seeing reality. We wrote about new sources of employment and doubted that they would create jobs, since almost all of them are focused on the technology sector. There are jobs in that sector. If you don’t belong to it and/or don’t have the necessary skills, welcome to the real world of job destruction. You can read: Jobs that will be in demand despite the crisis
Problem 2: job hunting is an unpaid full-time job
Another problem with looking for work is that job hunting has become a full-time, unpaid job, with a 95% chance of not reaching the final goal (getting the job on offer).
We can advise you, as we do in our human resources articles, to put together a good CV, to make your CV stand out, to spend day and night going round companies and even to widen your social circles. We can even advise you to spend more time looking for work on LinkedIn or job portals, but at the end of the day, the week or the month, it is highly likely you won’t have got the result you wanted, and apart from unemployment benefit, nobody will have paid you for that month of job hunting.
That’s when we’ll advise you to keep at it, not to give up, that “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”, not to despair, and so on and so forth… But competing for a single job offer against more than 1,000 candidates makes it a lot like playing the lottery. I’m clearly not trying to discourage you from looking for work, any more than I’m trying to discourage you from playing the lottery. If you win, you win.
Problem 3: the offers out there
On TV we have something called trash TV. On job portals you often find something you could call junk jobs. These are offers with no salary from the outset, where hiring is through a commercial or freelance contract rather than an employment contract. In practice that turns you into a self-employed worker (a business owner), with the disadvantage that you’re really working for someone else, in poor conditions and with the same insecurity as the self-employed: if you don’t sell, you don’t get paid. After all, that’s what self-employed people do.
Problem 4: working conditions (the labour reform)
“We have to work more and earn less,” some public figures like to say. We have to make sacrifices at work and accept a pay cut if necessary. In other words, having a job today gives you neither financial peace of mind nor job stability. Whether you can pay your mortgage next month won’t depend on you, but on how a third party manages things and what they decide.
See also: How to find the perfect product to sell in your online business
You can be fired at any time, because a very common practice in most companies is not to keep the best worker but to dismiss the one who is cheapest to let go. The advantage of the labour reform for companies is that now everyone is very cheap to dismiss.
Problem 5: the trend
If we analyze the market trend through the services companies are asking for, we can get an idea of where we’re heading. Last week I gave a short talk on how to increase a company’s sales using conventional methods with 30% fewer staff. The speaker before me talked about how to use social media and new technologies to sell more with minimal investment.
The one after me perhaps had the toughest job, because he spoke about how to make the most of the labour reform to squeeze everything out of the business. In other words, most companies aren’t thinking about hiring, but about holding on until the storm passes and trying to increase output with the resources and staff they already have. That doesn’t mean they won’t hire a key person or that vacancies won’t come up, but it won’t be the norm. I repeat: the technology market is creating jobs right now.
In short: if you’re looking for work, bear these five points in mind. If you ever thought about starting your own business but didn’t dare, and it’s still a thorn in your side, you won’t find a better time to make your dream come true.
If you ever thought about starting a business but preferred the security of a job, today I think starting a business is much safer, because at least the outcome depends on you.
I know some will say that not everyone can be an entrepreneur. That’s absolutely true. Not everyone can. Read: Can anyone be an entrepreneur? What does it take? That’s why this article is aimed at people who believe they can do it despite their fears and insecurities, people who know that failure is a possible outcome, but that trying is a great choice.
Further reading
- 15 questions to evaluate a business idea
- Why do 50% of entrepreneurs’ projects fail?
- Mistakes to avoid when starting a business
- Donald Trump: the mindset of an entrepreneur
- The story of the fisherman and the businessman: a question of mindset
Featured image: Christopher Eugene Lee, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
