Sociology

Hello. My name is    I am going to talk about the successive changes and their causes in the social security, welfare and employment policies for the past three decades.  I hope we will learn something from this.

As we all know, for an organisation to succeed and be productive, then the best resources must be used.  Human being form part of the resources which is known as the labour.  There are policies that are set to ensure that the human resources are efficient to make productive contribution to their work which directly affects the countrys economy.  This is the reason why the government has taken caution when dealing with the labour market matters and trends.  Some three decades ago, a full time job for the man of the house was deemed enough to support his family. If in any case his earnings were interrupted maybe due to sickness he would get a short term cover for the earnings lost then, inform of an unemployment benefit. However, this has changed due to the increasing number of families whereby the breadwinners are two since women also seek to support their families.  Moreover, there is mass unemployment which has extended the function of the social security system to deal with long term unemployment.  Also, there has been high level of low payments coupled with a lot of in-work expenses which has lead to search of more than one job for an individual.

The original level of unemployment has far much gone up compared to years back due to the effects of recessions which occurred in mid 1970s, early 1980s and 1990s as well as the latest which occurred in 2008.  The government had to enforce changes on some employment policies to reduce inflation and the depression in the economy by compromising some of the workers rights.  Alcock et al (2008, p 11) points out that, the working systems have also been transformed whereby the nationalised and manufacturing industries contracted while the private sector expanded due to the diversity of employment.  Many trade unions have also collapsed since there is no more collective bargaining and strikes.  This came about due to the privatisation of most of the sectors, the rise of personnel management and new employments opportunities.  Subsequently, the law was largely absent in matters of employment but currently the law has great impact in determining the remuneration for workers, the retirement age, the right of the employees and generally how the employers and employees should relate. This has also called for the need of worker being experienced to enable highest levels of accountability, responsibility and productivity.  The contribution of social security fund was centralised and the system allowed one to build up some amount of contributions over time for little rates to use after retirement. However, currently the rates have increased and the systems redesigned hence putting more pressure on the schemes. It is evident too that any unemployed person cannot benefit from these funds.

These are the changes we have experienced over time and their impact has been negative and positive to our economy.  If we embrace the positive changes for instance government involvement in protect of employees rights, then we will enjoy better economic and social lives as individuals and as a country.  We should also shun the negative change of not working as a team and rather embrace the idea of collective bargaining so that we can build brotherhood and save the less privileged.  I hope all this will be the best for us.  Thank your for your attention and time.