Work mindset needs changing

Last week I consulted documentation relating to my house insurance which was due to expire that night. The idea was to go to the office next day and pay the premium.

I noticed an opportunity to pay online so just before midnight, in slightly more than one minute, I accessed the website, transacted my business and received a certificate of renewal and payment.

No trip to town, no queuing at a busy counter, no engaging an insurance official. For not doing any of these traditional tasks I was rewarded with a 5% discount.

This is how such business is done in the 21st century: booking holidays, travel, hotel reservations, concert tickets, etc, etc, and, most significantly of all, paying taxes.

I mention payment of taxes over the net, especially as it involves the very heart of administration and government. Yet that self-same administration and government, when dealing with matters of employment and job creation act, as if technology such as the web had never happened.

The dogs in the street know that modern technology eliminates work at an astonishing and accelerating rate yet policies being implemented only add to the elimination.

Looking for longer hours of work and increasing retirement age are insane in present circumstances; like taking a blood donation while the jugular vein is haemorrhaging.

There is urgent need to look at the whole work/job relationship if there is ever to be chance of adequate employment again. We must devise means of creating more jobs from less work.

I challenge any politician or economist and indeed broadcasters and journalists who inexplicably refuse to ask such a question, to explain where the jobs of tomorrow will come from if we do not reconsider our whole mindset of work and jobs.

Technology will not go away; it will get better and eliminate further vast amounts of work and unless we begin to adapt, unemployment will soar to totally unmanageable levels. In some countries this is already happening; it would happen here without the release valve of Canada and Australia, and it’s only a short time until they experience similar difficulties.

The finishing touches are being put to celebration of The Gathering, to bring home the tens of thousands of exiled Irish who were forced to leave in search of jobs and a better life.

How can we celebrate such a worthwhile idea while still pursuing policies that are scattering the present generation of young Irish people even further afield?

Padraic Neary

Tubbercurry

Co Sligo