COMMENT | The radical idea of giving everyone a job

COMMENT | There is a new radical idea in town. It goes like this - the government should give every jobless person a job.

It is called the “federal job guarantee” scheme. The basic promise is what you suspect – there will be no more jobless person in Malaysia anymore.

Zero unemployment.

Last week, I wrote about how we are inching nearer to having a million people without a job. On the same day, the Department of Statistics stated that the unemployment numbers have shot up to 826,100 and it seems that the unemployment rate will increase until the end of the year.

The recession is seeing no signs of slowing down. At the end of the loan moratorium and wage subsidy scheme, the employment haemorrhage will worsen. When businesses cannot spend, they will lay off. When people lose their jobs, they cannot spend. When people cannot spend, businesses will not spend and lay off even more than before.

This explains why an Elizabethan I concept from 400 years ago is now making its way back into the mainstream again. In the US, more and more progressives like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are key proponents of this revised, radical idea.

The right to a job

At its core, the job guarantee scheme subscribes to a notion that everyone has...