Redundancy at 17... Yes that's me!

By Krupa Popat

Writing about economics and reading articles as to what is happening to the people around me because of the decisions of others really made me think about how privileged and grateful I should be.

However now, I’m in the position of experiencing the downfalls of the decisions and being on the receiving end… And I can definitely confirm it is not nice!

I worked for a retail company, which is a very large multinational but worked in a very small store, within a store. I worked there for over a year and thoroughly enjoyed it. I met new people and learnt many skills but especially developed my patience and ability to be quick on my feet with customer problems. Something you don’t do on a regular basis without a job.

This has disappointed me in the fact that our economy as been flat lining which made me think that the economy was going to get better and this would increase our confidence as consumers and the confidence of companies to invest. This would then hopefully kick start the growth and rebuild the economy.

So flat lining means we’re stable but a slight growth for a country as economically developed as ours is simply not good enough. Major multinationals aren’t expanding and aren’t making enough profit; we’re not spending!

However now I’ve been made redundant, the wages I received which created a multiplier effect for the shops that I spent in has now gone. The time that I don’t work will mean that the skills that I’ve learnt, I wont be using so they wont be as good as they were before.

I believe redundancy will and has cause(d) major problems for not only the economy (understandably) but for the individuals themselves. I’m only young and I’m still studying, but for those who depended on that money for bills and food, it has had an overspill effect onto their health. So not only is that bad for the people and their health but it is also bad for the NHS and the government in terms of opportunity costs.

Austerity is to cut back. But cutting back too much will most likely end up in spending more in the areas that could have been avoided.

What do you think? Let me know your thoughts!