Don’t Just Get a Job, Make a Job: A Worker’s Guide to the Future

What was once called “job security” is now more like “job insecurity.” With more and more workers being laid off, company’s bankrupting, downsizing, and going out of business over the past few years, this career instability has made the idea of self-employment more appealing to more people. Entrepreneurship is becoming a more attractive, and maybe even necessary, means of securing your future. 

Face it; it is not the 50’s or the 60’s any longer. No one is guaranteed a job tomorrow if they start today the way our parents and grandparents entered the workforce. It was easier for them because times were more stable, trends and values were more conservative and change hardly ever came. So businesses lasted longer.

Today, with the rapid changes of technology and the Internet, new jobs and new frontiers are opening almost yearly. Anyone seeking a future in society today has to have the skills and the know-how to keep up. One has to have a sense and spirit of survival and of creativity. Creativity because there are more ways than one to make a living today.

Instead of majoring in the career that once brought prestige and fortune, like a doctor or a lawyer, there are other occupations that offer the same if not more success, like computers, the health care field, child care, and managing other’s people’s businesses and homes. Many more occupations are telecommuting, working at home, and from remote places other than the office cubical or local warehouse.

More universities are offering courses, even majors in entrepreneurship and business management. The business major has a wide choice of occupations today, and a more promising future than the old ‘doctor/lawyer’ thing. Times are changing and we have to change with the times. Knowing which way society and its trends are headed is very important when planning your future.

Some schools have set forth programs that will start students with seed money from the school to start their own business. Of course as a school policy, after the program ends, the businesses are liquidated, with any profits donated to charity. But the trend is there and will continue to grow. We need to realize which way we are headed and cannot be left behind.

Entrepreneurship becomes more popular in a weak economy when laid-off workers can’t find jobs at existing companies. But it is also attractive in better times — people know they can fail at a new business and still recover. This kind of incentive gives people the option of creating their own destiny and not having to depend on corporate entities and government funds. People feel more in control of their lives.

Think future and think fast, we do not want to be left even further behind as another minority.