Going Underground: not just numbers, but actual families

 

We are used to hear about layoffs, so used to hear about layoffs that layoffs happen all the time and we are none the wiser about how they happen or even where they happen. What is even more odd is that we are not even aware of the real repercussions of the fact that people being laid off. We are not really aware of what is going Underground, under the ground of numbers and percentages we are being flooded with.

I guess that when you enter a bank branch - of the few that remain open compared to the numbers we had just a few years ago, or when you enter a local supermarket, you don't think about how many people have simply vanished from workplaces having been replaced by automation. You might think about how difficult it is to get a job or about how little people are being paid with salaries that will never allow them to climb the housing ladder, but you don't make the connection between automation and rising dispossesion. Somebody might talk about isolation, depression, anxiety, and so forth, but we seldom see the link between employment and many of the social illnesses, mental illnesses and physical illnesses. 

Most of us build our present and think about our futures taking into account how much we earn doing what we are doing. You make plans and suddenly you get the news that you no longer have a job. You no longer have what it takes to support yourself, to pay your bills, to save for that ever elusive future that you might never have.

Like an economics teacher of mine said 'don't forget that all those numbers, those figures, those percentages, those equations and formulae are real people'. 

What about a vaccine against unemployment?

There is no secret about the fact that more than 250,000 people lost their jobs in the United Kingdom since the start of the Covid-19 saga, but lets not forget that many companies like Debenhams and Arcadia were facing tough choices long before Covid-19 became item number one on the news. 

Hardly a single sector has been left untouched by the new realities. We have been bombarded with messages that have made vast segments of the British population extremely afraid. For the moment there is little hope of life being what it was before Covid-19. Britain is like a car running on an empty tank. Much needed social interaction is in very short supply and what before was normal can now be considered to be a criminal activity.

How anxious do you feel? How depressed do you feel? What makes you happy and makes feel that your life is worth living? Financial issues produce a huge impact on peoples' lives. Suddenly, your world becomes very small. You cannot do this and you cannot do that. When 'I can't afford it' becomes the norm rather than the exception, the words 'dead end' come to mind.

The rise of the numbers of people suffering from some kind of mental illness is one of the direct consequences of the Covid-19 saga. Lockdown measures are not good for the economy, but lets remember that our mental health and physical health are also being compromised.