Alternative for Unemployment or Housing Policy - Assignment Example

?Alternative for Unemployment or Housing Policy Table of Contents ment of Topic 3 Brief Overview of Issue Area 4 Policy Discussion 4 4 Pros and Cons of Policy Discussion 5 Proposed New Policy 6 Arguments or Recommendations about Why This Policy Should Be Adopted and What Weaknesses in Existing Policy It Addresses 6 7 Works Cited 8 Statement of Topic In recent times, the United States of America (USA) has been facing a lot of unemployment issues. The country has been facing hurdles to eradicate the issue of unemployment due to recession that has occurred very recently. The concept of recession came into being due to the Great Depression that took place in the USA in the year 1929. To overcome the problem of Great Depression, the country took a substantial amount of time to get out of it. As time went by, the country was able to provide employment opportunities to an extent to the people but due to recent recession the country got into unemployed circumstances. The past seven decades showed the country with unpleasant unemployment crisis. In the year 2009, around 15.6 million of the people were left unemployed and around one-third of the people were jobless for the past six months. The circumstances were so severe during the same year that approximately 9.3 million people got involved into part time jobs because full-time jobs were not available. In spite of creation of approximately 200,000 jobs in the year 2009 the above situation still remains the same (Estevao & Tsounta, “IMF Working Paper”). The employment situation of the USA is quite severe and the government needs to develop strong policies in order to remove unemployment that has taken a place in the nation. Moreover, the private sectors are also unable to facilitate jobs in comparison to the number of jobs that are required by the nation. In order to get through the situation of unemployment the nation should provide financial relief to the state. Moreover, it should also provide certain amount of relief to those employees who lost their jobs due to recession by giving them the right job opportunity. Brief Overview of Issue Area The recession that took place in the year 2007 had a massive effect in the employment market of the USA. The number of unemployed people was estimated to be around by 8.5 million in 2007. Huge losses in jobs also continued in the year 2008. The problem of unemployment increased nearly by 750000 per month in the year 2009. The problem of unemployment had a negative effect on the economy of the USA. In the year 2011, there were around 46% of people who were unemployed. The people of America had faced this problem for the next 27 weeks from the time they were unemployed. The analysts revealed that there were jobless people especially in the manufacturing sector. There were around 2 million people who lost their jobs since the start of recession, till the year 2010. However, the statistics of labor market related to job availability have increased recently from the past two or three months. The recent data for employment as of the month of April 2012 reveals that the nonfarm payroll policy for employees increased approximately by 115000. On the other hand, the number of people who were without a job had a minimum change of around 8.1%. The problem of unemployment has unequal effects on the economy of the USA. The effect creates a mismatch between the skilled labor force and the need of laborers at various organizations. The number of low-skilled laborers especially those who are studying in schools have increased unevenly (Estevao & Tsounta, “IMF Working Paper”;” BLS Bureau of Labour Statistics U.S. Department of Labour, “The Employment Situation —April 2012”; Shimer, “Why Is the U. S. Unemployment Rate So Much Lower?”). Policy Discussion The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is mainly focused on developing the administrative system of Employment Creation Program. The program is mainly known as EB-5. The EB-5 program was mainly developed in order to sponsor the immigration rate of people who might be equipped to establish jobs for the people of the USA. The jobs will be created with the help of investment that will be made by the immigrants. The investment will develop the economy of the USA that will help in creating more number of jobs for the people of the USA. The immigrants who spend their capital in the economy of the US are provided with certain advantages. The immigrants are provided with “conditional permanent resident status”. (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “A Work in Progress: Towards a New Draft Policy Memorandum Guiding EB-5 Adjudications”). The status is given to them for a period of two years. After the completion of the two years if the immigrants fulfill the requirements of EB-5 program then without any condition the immigrants become the permanent residents of the USA. There are essentially three elements under the program EB-5 those include the immigrant’s investment of capital in a fresh commercial enterprise and that creates jobs. The term capital according to EB-5 program is defined as the different ways through which an immigrant can contribute towards the business. On the other hand, investment refers to the amount of capital invested in exchange of bond, note and convertible debt. The commercial enterprise gives details about the business world and the various structures and forms that are included in job creating activities. The investments that are made by the immigrants should be recognized as to whether that investment will result in creating jobs or not (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “A Work in Progress: Towards a New Draft Policy Memorandum Guiding EB-5 Adjudications”). Pros and Cons of Policy Discussion The assets that are being provided by its migrants will be valued according to the money value of the USA. Assets that are acquired through unlawful means will not be accepted under any circumstance. The investors target the rural area or those areas that are facing unemployment i.e. with a rate of around 150% with respect to the population of that particular place or area. Even though rural areas become the targeted area for business, the USA government requests the immigrants to invest in newly developed commercial enterprise that are on a business procedure and are creating jobs. Furthermore, these enterprises will target the rural area and other places that are severely unemployed. The EB-5 program mainly aims at commercial enterprises because these enterprises develop approximately 10 jobs for the USA employees (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “A Work in Progress: Towards a New Draft Policy Memorandum Guiding EB-5 Adjudications”). In the USA, a number of people are jobless for more than 27 weeks from the time they are unemployed (Estevao & Tsounta, “IMF Working Paper”). The nation has not shown any significant increase in its employment opportunities. Instead of generation of maximum number of job opportunities in a vast and developed country like the USA the nation’s ratio has decreased year-after-year. The country is taking help from immigrants in order to increase job opportunities. The reason behind taking help from immigrants is that the country wants them to do investment in order to increase job opportunities in the USA. This reveals that the country has largely depended upon the aspect of involvement, interest and availability of finances of immigrants, which is quite unpredictable and which is a substantial drawback of the policy. The program EB-5 is largely developed so that the country can get indirect job opportunities through immigrants. Proposed New Policy In a country like the USA if job opportunities have to be created then other than encouraging the immigrants the country itself should take certain steps in order to reduce unemployment. Therefore, the existing EB-5 program or policy needs to be looked after quite carefully and certain alternations can be made to the policy so that further jobs can be created. The proposed policy is provided hereunder. Firstly, the country should develop strong finances through the government. Once the government is able to access finance then there is possibility of increase in the number of entrepreneurs. The new upcoming entrepreneurs will develop new job opportunities. Furthermore, the job opportunities that will be developed will give added advantage to the economy of the USA. Secondly, the country should develop a systematic recruitment policy which indicates right person for the right job. This policy will help the country to have a standard employment scenario. There will be less wastage of jobs as well. Wastage of job creates unemployment opportunities in the country. Thirdly, employees should be provided with equal opportunity in which ever organization the individual works. Unhealthy situations should not be created due to cultural differences among the employees as this leads to unemployment. Fourthly, the main aim behind any newly developed policy should be to increase the production of employment. The labor force should participate in maximum number in various activities of the organization. In order to have increased labor force the country should make attempts in providing labor education. Finally, people who are disabled should also be given job opportunities as they are also part of the society. The departments at various organizations should be segregated according to the kind of job a disable person can do. This will also reduce unemployment by a considerable extent (Crown, “BIS Department for Business Innovation & Skills”; Crown, “BIS Department for Business Innovation & Skills”; Pathak, “Managing Cultural Diversities in Internationalization of Business”). Arguments or Recommendations about Why This Policy Should Be Adopted and What Weaknesses in Existing Policy It Addresses The above constructed policy recommendations should be adopted because these give a crystal clear idea regarding reduction in unemployment. The country, USA allows immigrants to make investment in order to increase employment opportunity. The policy recommendations that have been created will be able to create job opportunities. In the USA, there is still a major prospect for increase of entrepreneurship as without entrepreneurs’ ventures job creation can be quite difficult. The policy will help the country to discover new entrepreneurs by which there will be employment opportunities in the country. When immigrants are entering the nation, they are facing difficulties in investing as they are unknown in front of the nation and they are also unfamiliar with the requirements to invest. The policy that has been developed has no requirement of outside immigrants’ involvement as the investments can be made by the country itself. When finances are available from the country itself then there are less chances of risk. If outside immigrants invest, the country generally takes a lot of time in taking decisions as there are huge amount of risks involved. The process is time consuming and unemployment increases more during the entire procedure. The policy that has been created reveals that right person should receive the right job. With the help of immigrants, jobs will be created but whether employees will be provided with the right job will be unknown. The entire aspect that will not be known to the nation might create risk and instead of creating more jobs the country might face more losses in job opportunities. Through the investments that are made by immigrants, jobs are being created but whether the labor force is provided with job opportunities will always be a grey area. Works Cited BLS Bureau of Labour Statistics U.S. Department Of Labour. The Employment Situation —April 2012. Nonfarm payroll employment, 2012. Web. 30 May. 2012. Crown. BIS Department for Business Innovation & Skills. Access to finance, 2012. Web. 30 May. 2012. Crown. BIS Department for Business Innovation & Skills. Access to the professionals, 2012. Web. 30 May. 2012. Estevao, Marcello & Tsounta, Evridiki. IMF Working Paper. Has the Great Recession Raised U.S. Structural Unemployment?, 2011. Web. 30 May 2012. Pathak, Sonal. “Managing Cultural Diversities in Internationalization of Business.” International Journal of Enterprise Computing and Business Systems 1.1 (2011). Shimer, Robert. “Why Is the U. S. Unemployment Rate So Much Lower?” NBER Macroeconomics Annual 13 (1998): 11-74. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A Work in Progress: Towards a New Draft Policy Memorandum Guiding EB-5 Adjudications. Policy Memorandum, No Date. Web. 30 May. 2012. Read More