INSIGHTS ON VOLUNTEERING DURING RECESSION

THINKING OUTLOUD....
I was thinking about the tendency of FORCED volunteering, which is happening every day for the three most vulnerable layers of our populations: foreign-trained professionals, middle-aged career changers and generation Y recent graduates of high or post-secondary schools. They have all been advised that starting volunteering is the gateway into their dream jobs, networking, getting desirable skills etc. In my opinion, this is a type of exploitation of people's desperate situations - to me it would be more honest to advocate for these people and create the type of contracts that permit them to stay in the company, after a particular "on-the-job training", for at least one or two years (similar to the existing wage-subsidy contracts). Working for less money (possibly), but in their own professional fields, they should have enough time to prove their talents and commitment to the profession. I am going to work on this idea for my clients - to me the whole volunteering idea is mixed up in this economy. I cannot imagine people working for free, when they do not have enough money to put food on the table for their family; we push them out of their comfort zone, creating an environment, where they're  desperate and vulnerable to all sorts of scams .

Do not get me wrong - I am a life-long volunteer myself - I also donate my money to the projects, which seem to improve the quality of people's life. However, I would never judge any unemployed guy or gal who prefers working double shifts on low-income jobs to volunteering for their favorite causes.
I would do everything to help my clients stay who they are and resolve this problem.I would talk openly about this "volunteering" tendency and negotiating better solutions with prospective employers on clients' behalf! I would make a proposal to our governments of all levels to stand behind those types of contracts and invest into or subsidize an existing talent pool. In turn, it will help balance the labour flow, will make us competitive on the world scale and will bring benefits to our society as a whole!

UNEMPLOYMENT AS PART OF LIFE

It is accepted by the new model of the world of work that the bulk of our current population is going to be constantly on the move between  jobs, or even careers. That means, in turn, we have to sacrifice our values for the stability and certainty of one's career path for the sake of knowledge oriented technologies and global re-orientation of the modern business collaborations. What do we gain instead?
Looking at the bright side:

• life-long learning attitude, more democratic approach to education, including on-the-job training, virtual schools, community educational and training services, sponsored by governments and corporations;

•  international business, cultural and global traveling opportunities; possibilities to participate in global scale projects; on the other hand, growing tendency for flexible workdays, including working and studying from home;

• division of labour between countries - someone makes the best planes, someone  provides the best pilots...
• nations on the move means an increased need for various type of transportation and  an  increased need for directions where to move, settlement, informational,  childminding services, you name it-  suddenly, an opportunity for the new set of jobs in Transportation,  Hospitality, Informational and Social services 

And many more, however, lets look on the other side of this coin:

• every time, when we fall out of this system,  we have to make sure that we are competitive enough as our skills can get outdated within very short span of time - in 1-2 years and even shorter...Our grandparents will never be able to understand how could they make more money with less education, and their grandchildren with university degrees can not get a job better than an entry level position for the Home depot customer service, because during their 5 years of education the industry has disappeared from the Earth face. It would be funny, if would not be sad...
• fierce competition creates the stress and disbalance between life and work; the more stressful is environment, the less healthy are relationships between people; and the less healthy are people themselves. How our forties and fifties are going to look like in this economy?
• if people are constantly on the move, their life style has to be changed and all the real estate has to lose its value; we are going to, similar to tourists or gypsies,  follow  the available job market and keep all our staff as mobile as possible;  our "mobility" is going to dictate change for the houses' structure, and  for all other items of our every day living - it will need to fit in one suitcase. "Small space" concept seemed to be already attractive to the generation Y and to modern overpopulated cities and countries.
• nations on the move means that people going to deal with real  issues such as decrease in commitment of any aspects, increase in exploitation for the same reason (think of the modern contracted jobs - who is responsible for your health or your relationships with your family or community). 
• The most dangerous tendency is about decreasing of our natural tendency of sharing  - we are going to develop survival techniques so that employers would keep us longer on the job - we will keep our secret formula with us or try to sell it big to cover time between jobs.

We can go on and go on, but the question is - do we really need to sacrifice our values, is it worth it?