The Closing or Downsizing of a Community Industry - Coursework Example

The Closing or Downsizing of a Community Industry Introduction When you look around your community and analyze the negative aspects, there would be numerous reasons why the world has gone bad over the past few years. Situation has gone worse. Terrorism is at its peak not just on a big level but also when you consider grass root level. I say this with personal experience after a move in my local community lead to increase in the number of crimes in my area. Seven months ago, an industry in my community that used to make plastic toys shut down because of a financial crisis. The company was popular in the city for its toys, mainly because of the cheap prices and the availability all across the city. The notable thing about the company for that it had hired people of the local community in the factory. It opened up hundreds of jobs when it incepted. People in the area were able to set a steady income for their families. The overall prosperity of the community went high. The crime rates also went low because of the high rate of employment. In addition, they were also able to send their children to proper schools because they could afford it courtesy of the jobs they had at the toy factory. However, things started to go bad at the factory. The company started facing a financial turmoil and had to cut down on their assets. They were not able to sell their toys as much as they did in their peak years. The main reasons were the flurry of foreign companies in the country and the preference of kids to more modern and technology based toys. This meant that the plastic toys were no more a preference in the market and their sales suffered greatly. The company was not making as much profit as it would have like in order to be able to run the factory properly. Employees were either being paid late salaries or were not being paid at all. The company then started downsizing which saw several people of the locality lose their jobs. Employment hit the community and the situation started going from bad to worse. People were living off hefty loans and were suffering because of not having any income in their households. The financial turmoil at the factory went so bad that they owners of the company had to shut off their operations completely. Every asset the company had in their name was sold off in order to pay its deficits. All jobs, hundreds in numbers, were lost. Unemployment in the community reached a record high with majority of the people living in the area without a job. The people who were employed at the factory were trained and educated there and were also equipped with toy making skills. Problem was that these skills would not get them a good job elsewhere. They were manufacturing a product that was a thing of the past and had no demand in the market and in the eyes of the modern kids anymore. Therefore, their skills were not required and almost none of them found a job soon. The community then started facing the wrath of a high rate of unemployment. The lack of income led to people indulging in wrongdoings and criminal activities in order to make money for their families (White, 68). The demand of fulfilling the necessities of the family forced them to earn money in whatever way possible. The area reported kidnapping for ransom, dacoits, robberies, killings and various other criminal activities. Upon researching with the police department of the locality, I found out that the area saw a marked increase in the number of criminal activities during the last seven months. This was after the time the company closed down and then workers of the factory lost their jobs. I also interview a senior police officer in order to find more evidence about the effect of the closing down of the industry in the community. He said that the area was peaceful when the factory was up and running. People had good jobs and income was stable. There was no need for the people of the community to indulge in bad activities. But, since the closing down of the factory, he said that they have been having extremely busy times. The crime rate has increased. The area has reported several robbery cases. Kidnapping has also reached an all time high. The motives behind all of these criminal activities are all to earn money through unlawful means. Unemployment in the community led to the rise of such wrongdoings. I also interviewed a former employee of the factory who was currently unemployed. He explained that the closure of the factory had a massive impact on them. They lost their jobs and were not skilled enough to find a new one elsewhere. Survival became tough as they had families including three to four children on average. He said that he knew many people who worked with him in the factory in the past who were indulged in criminal activities. This is how badly the community got affected because of unemployment. Looking at the bigger picture, when you think of a country as a whole, these are the smaller problems that eventually lead to the bigger ones. Countries that have a high rate of unemployment have experienced more crime and terror. This is because the want of money forces a human being to indulge in wrong activities. This is exactly what happened to the community. Remedies Considering the situation, major steps need to be taken in order to solve the problem in the community. First of all, the one major reason why the people of the community were unable to find jobs again was because they were not skilled or educated enough. People who could only afford to go to school were able to educate themselves and their families. The root cause of every problem is the lack of education. In order to eradicate this, the community should follow examples of other communities that have started welfare trusts and schools that provide primary education to the young ones for free. This primary education proves vital as it helps them enhance their skills when they get to the age of working professionally. An example could be taken of the Bohra community. The people of the community make regular donations to the central welfare system. The funds that are collected by the welfare are invested in building free schools so that children of the community can acquire education and get ready for their adult life. Another way of using those funds is to start small businesses. These businesses would mean that more jobs would open up. People of the communities will have employment opportunities. I interviewed one of the organizing officers of the Bohra Welfare Centre and he told us how collecting funds from the richer families in the community had helped them build jobs for people and also educate children whose parents could not afford to send them to school. He informed that his community is a very closely knit one and people generated wholeheartedly. They realized that unemployment was not just the problem of the one suffering but in the long run, it was a problem for the whole community. Considering how it leads to several criminal activities, they realized that they would have to take action themselves in order to have a safer and more prosperous future for their families. The actions of the Bohra community should be taken as a lesson in how a community and its people can help others to live a happy and content life. Conclusion The first and foremost step that I will take is make investors invest capital in the community and start up new businesses. This will help the people to get new jobs. Investors can be attracted if the area is presented as an attractive proposition. The lure of cheap and productive labor can be very enticing for big investors and that could be used as an advantage. Secondly, the other major step would be to establish educational centers for children. The idea behind these schools would be to provide free of cost education to the children of the community. With the help of primary education, the children would be able to get admissions to good colleges and universities. The education from the schools would also help them achieve merit based scholarships so that they could pursue higher education from quality institutions (Sloman, 811). The investments would open up employment opportunities whereas education would mean that the next generation would be becoming well equipped to get better jobs and earn stable incomes. The root causes for problems in the community were unemployment and the lack of proper education. Starting as minor problems, they ruined the prosperity of the community and transformed it into a criminal zone. With the actions I have suggested, the lost pride and prosperity of my community could be restored in the future. Works cited Sloman, John. Essentials of Economics. London: Prentice Hall Europe, 1998. Print. White, Graham. "The Poverty of Conventional Economic Wisdom and the Search for Alternative Economic and Social Policies." The Drawing Board: An Australian Review of Public Affairs 2.2 (2001): 67-87. Web. 23 Apr. 2013. Top of Form Bottom of Form Read More