Malaysia’s unemployment rate is still low compared to many countries. However, there has been many news about banks reducing their workforce, manufacturing plants moving to China and even some shutting down altogether. This brings us to the topic of job security. Honestly, what is job security in today’s world? Is it working for one company from the day we start until the day we retire and the company continue to give us increments year after year? Well, perhaps this is one aspect of job security. There are not many such companies today, by the way. Even the employees themselves may not be looking to stay beyond that few years before they change jobs for a better position or higher pay.
My term of job security is for us to continue to change for the better. In other words, every year, we are improving on what we do. We are taking up more responsibilities. We start to move uptake career ladder and we can do more, with less time. When we are improving faster than majority of those in the same profession as us, then we have job security. It may not be with the same company but as long as within the industry, we are well above the rest, it meant that should we resign or the company shuts down, we should be able to find another job easily. We determine our own job security. It is not with the same company. It is just us being good enough compared to the majority.
Moving one step further, the outcome from job security is the fact that we have enough money to spend, to take care of our family and to enjoy vacations on and off. When we focus on outcome basis, job security need not be the main priority. It is ensuring that we still have enough money to spend, take care of our family and vacations that should take centre stage. This is where savings come in, especially during the time when our company is paying us good salaries. From savings, it will turn into investments and from investments, it would soon turn into a ‘life security.’ This is actually the ultimate goal for job security.
Sure, many would laugh and say not everyone may be able to make it big in investment. I would then laugh back and tell them that not many would one day be Bill Gates. However, does it mean everyone should stop improving their lives? Should we believe the propaganda by many that it is already too expensive to buy, thus it’s better to rent? Think and then act accordingly. Job security is definitely more than just having one job till the day we say bye-bye. Happy looking for job security or ‘life security.’
written on 3 Nov 2015
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