Which Jobs safest when the economy is bad

As we steadily approach the edge of the long-anticipated ‘double dip,’ the Great Recession continues its third straight year as the central topic of economic discussion in our country. It has affected, and continues to affect, everyone in the US in one way or another – whether through unemployment, defunding of state and government institutions like school and infrastructure, or the violent fluctuations of the stock market. Unemployment, in particular, has long been pinpointed by numerous economists as the number one economic problem in our midst.

Though unemployment has been wide-reaching across industries, some have clearly been hit worse than others. Certain professions, such as mail sorting and photo processing, are being phased out by emerging digital technologies rapidly rendering them, arguably, obsolete. Others businesses, such as independent record stores, are in decline because of the way their respective industries have radically become transformed – once again, thanks to digital technology.

Other jobs, however, against all odds, are on the rise. The steep rise. And while everyone knows that the tech giants are constantly hiring the best and brightest, you might be surprised to hear about a few of the others. Any interest in becoming a performance makeup artist? Now’s the time, with 40% projected job growth into 2016. Or how about dabbling in mental health counseling? There are more than societal benefits to this job, with a remarkable – though somewhat unexplainable – projected growth of 30%. So if you’re sick of your job and craving a new profession, now might be the time to head back to school and get that secondary degree in one of these 10 specializations. These jobs, according to data, have nowhere to go but up.

Some interesting jobs with good salaries:

• Mental Health Consellor $37,840
• Forensic Science Technician $48,150
• Financial Analyst $77,280
• Dental Hygienist $62,430
• Skincare Specialist $29,550
• Computer Software Engineer $87,250
• Database Administrator $67,460
• Veterenarian $89,490

And don’t even think abou becoming a lamp lighter, type setter, lector or elevator operator – these jobs are facing extinction.

For more infographic career fun, check out How To Get a Job at Apple, Facebook and Google

Five Strategies For Surviving Tough Times

When economic times turn tough, governments urge their citizens to spend. Economists think of citizens as "consumers" and rely on them to put their "disposable income" to work. By doing this they will support the economy, which translates into higher stock prices.

However, in times like early 2008, when consumers were reeling from the perfect storm of inflation, a global credit crunch, a global housing market in decline and concerns about stagflation, there is often a conflict with the governmental cry for consumers to spend. It's a bewildering scenario. What's the best course of action for a concerned consumer to take? The following five strategies provide a road map for surviving economic downturns.

1. Don't buy what you can't afford.We all want that designer sweater, leather handbag, or cute sports car, but most of us just can't afford to make the purchases. There's a simple solution to this dilemma. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. This is often the easiest point to understand, but it is one of the hardest to implement when all those goodies are staring you in the face and all your credit companies are telling you it's OK.

2. If you can't pay cash, you probably can't afford it.In our credit crazy world, amassing debt no longer carries a social stigma. Everybody has a car payment, a house payment and credit card payments. Well, remember what your mother said about everybody jumping off of a bridge? Just because "everybody" is doing it, doesn't make it a good idea. Buying something you can't afford now, especially when the economy is unsettled, can double the pain of paying later. For example, if you purchase a $450,000 home today and the market goes into a slump and devalues your home by $200,000, you will be paying the bank twice what the home has come to be worth. Just because it was easy to get the credit to buy that home, doesn't mean it was the right time for you to buy in.

3. Paying interest on anything makes somebody else rich.When you pay interest on a purchase, you are overpaying for that item for the luxury of getting to use it now. The simple act of paying interest means that the price you are paying to make the purchase is greater than the sale price of the item. You are giving away even more of your hard-earned money in order to own that item than the manufacturer thought the item was worth. For example, if you buy a car for $25,000 with a loan at 7% interest for five years, in the end, you will pay almost $30,000 for the car. Once you factor in depreciation, you're left with a very cheap car that cost you thousands more than it should have.

4. If you are in debt, stop spending money.Sometimes, such as when purchasing a home, the cost of the item is so great that you simply cannot afford to pay cash. This should be the exception rather than the rule. When it cannot be avoided, you need to close your purse and stop spending. Getting yourself further it debt doesn't help your financial situation. Making a realistic budget in this case is the key to success. Once you know how much you're actually spending on those daily trips to the grocery store and coffee shop, you'll be able to find room to cut costs realistically. (Keep reading about the benefits of budgets in Six Months To A Better Budget and The Beauty Of Budgeting.)

5. Don't count on somebody else to save you.In times of economic uncertainty, people often think the government will be able to help them, but unfortunately this is often the time when the government has the least amount of money and freedom to help its own citizens. In most cases, the government won't save you, so you'll have to save yourself.

When the economy is in a downturn, you can't just look at what you are spending, you also need to look at where the money is coming from. Your employer is facing the same difficulties you are: trying to make bill payments, balancing the flow of capital, all while sales are slowing. Just like you, your employer will be looking to reduce its costs, which could be in the form of layoffs. You could be in big trouble if you haven't planned for this possibility.

The plan here is to start saving now for that eventual rainy day, and prepare an emergency fund for yourself. If it is too late to start saving and you already need the money, many financial institutions will let you defer a payment or two if you prove you have a smart financial plan to eventually pull through. (To keep reading about emergency funds, see Build Yourself An Emergency Fund and Are You Living Too Close To The Edge?)

 Live Now Like You Face Tough TimesThese five strategies work equally well when times are good, so there is no need to wait until you are in trouble to start making smart decisions.

Your lifestyle will be characterized by things you can actually afford, such as a house that won't get repossessed, a car that might not impress the neighbors but will still get you to work and back, and long, restful nights free from financial worries. It might not be the fairytale lifestyle of the rich and famous that corporate marketers having been trying sell you, but at least you won't have to worry about how to keep up on the payments for a lifestyle you can't afford.

If you're still struggling with how to make budgeting and credit work for you, check out our Budgeting 101 and Debt Management special features.

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Bulawayo flea markets fall on hard times

One of the seasoned flea market operators Samukelisiwe Ngwenya said the tide was currently going against their type of business.
“Flea markets are no longer viable because most people are not working and they prefer to buy on credit than cash,” Ngwenya said.
“There are many cross-border traders who find it better to sell their stuff at home than flea markets due to high rentals.
“Customers that are supposed to come to the flea markets are buying from those people who sell their stuff at home because they allow their customers to take the goods on credit,” she said.
She said the rental for a single stand at $120 was expensive, considering the prevailing liquidity crunch.
“The charge itself is too high and we hardly make a profit here and this has forced many to abandon the markets.

Flea markets in the second largest city are feeling the pinch of  an underperforming economy.
The markets have for years provided alternative sources of income for many households struggling to make ends meet as industries closed throwing thousands out of jobs.
  While various mainstream businesses have been wilting under the effects of the stressed economy, the informal sector has also borne the brunt of shrinking incomes
     The customers have gone with the wind.
A survey conducted by this paper in Bulawayo shows that all is not well for the flea market operators.
A tour within the city’s popular flea markets also revealed that there are many vacant stands, a development which signified that the situation was not getting any better as people struggle day in day out to earn a living.
Affected flea markets include Fort 11, Unity Village, West Side, Indoor, Sky Top, OK Bazaar and SDA, among others.
 “Generally, money is not circulating; people do not have money out there. We incur a lot of costs, including duty and transport which makes it difficult to survive.”
Flea markets have for years been the choice for many fashion lovers as it was known for bringing latest imported clothes at relatively competitive prices in the process beating traditional retail outlets.
With the changing times it seems the clothing shops have also adopted fresh strategies like introducing zero deposits and long repayment periods from consumers who naturally depended on flea markets.
Precious Nkomazana, 43, said she was forced to reduce the number of stalls she was operating in town due to the decline in business.
“There was a time when we used to make a lot of profits from these stalls, particularly during the inclusive government’s period but to be honest things are falling apart,” Nkomazana said.
“I used to have about six stalls that I rented in town at different flea markets but now you can’t believe that I am only left with two which I am also struggling to sustain”.
Nkomazana appealed to the Bulawayo City Council to intervene and try to reduce costs that are forcing them out of business.
Theresa Chikanhi, 32, a former secretary at the Zimbabwe Cross Border Association said running a flea market nowadays was almost a luxury. “You really have to be strong these days because the conditions and the environment is way unfriendly. The rentals at the flea market are something else,” Chikanhi said.
She said most people are now relying on the second hand section popularly known as Khothama (bend down) just opposite the Tower Block in the city centre.
Unfortunately, the Khothama open air flea market is only open on weekends and public holidays making it difficult for those who survive solely on selling second hand clothes.
The Zimbabwe Chamber of the Informal Economy Association (ZCIEA) Matabeleland Region president Edward Manning said the situation was dire in the informal sector.
“Like every other sector, we are also facing hard times following the closure of companies in the city. There is no dollar power here. Money is not just circulating as it should,” said Manning.
He said it was disappointing that the Zanu PF government was concentrating on their internecine squabbles at the expense of the economy which is on a free fall.

Residents at Flea Market outside Bulawayo City Hall

Bulawayo's community gardens boost economic activity

ZDDT’s Pumula South facilitated nutritional garden

 In a move that Bulawayo’s Ward 27’s community described as a worthy investment, ZDDT’s Pumula South facilitated nutritional garden has become primary source of vegetables for local vendors.The vendors are now openly commending the gardeners by telling this Correspondent that the garden was supporting their own enterprise.

When this garden started, people overlooked it as a flop, but here it is now, people are getting their orders from this garden.

People are encouraged to  join the garden club, as this might help many jobless people since the economy in Zimbabwe is not good and thus unepmloyment rates are high. 

About eleven vegetable vendors, operating in the vicinity of the project have been saved from travelling to City’s Main market, as they are conveniently walking to buy their fresh vegetables at this nearby allotment where the local women make up the membership.

The saving on travel, to and from the city markets each day, amounts to an average of  sixty dollars a month.

ZDDT’s Pumula South facilitated nutritional garden

http://www.zddt.org/zddt-news/570-community-garden-economic-activity 

The level of unemployment has reached alarming and unsustainable levels

people vending in front of their homes

The level of unemployment has reached alarming and unsustainable levels due to massive retrenchments, alarming levels of deindustrialization’s, exporting of jobs to South Africa and China due to high imports, high sovereign risk, institutional rigidities, low foreign direct investment which is all leading to massive despair, poverty ,idleness ,possible seething anger and a nation of nothing else except vending .

A man cares little for ideology, statements of intention, propaganda, historical imbalances and many other dummies being sold, no matter how noble, when he has no work and his family is starving.

The economic slide shows no sign of receding or ending but rather it’s on heightened deceleration. The government reassuring creed is that something is being done. Let that something be done!! That something is the hard decision points.

Zimbabwe cannot afford to be poor yet it is rich in resources’ and has innumerable other comparative advantages. The county needs to change its economic policy, operating environment and laws to attract foreign direct investments.

Large and small companies are failing and the government invokes the “too big to fail” and “national emergency” mantras and selects the winners in industry, not based on their merits but on the basis of lobby efforts, political influence and “national interest”.

This is not to say some of the goals are not practicable and laudable but there is real danger that we are yet know the economic abyss we face if we continue with this trajectory without making hard decisions.

The tools currently chosen to correct the decline are not compatible with achieving sustainable comparative advantages but rather promote investors to flee this jurisdiction and some of the investors never considering us as a choice investment destination.

I was thinking today about how much effort it takes to be rational in this irrational world. It’s a lot of effort. Rational thinking shows that reckless populist policies damages investor confidence and undermines the economy.

My rational thinking is that the government may have to backtrack on some of its major policies or we will soon have no fiscal space even to pay the revered civil servants.

The reason to backtrack is self-evident for any rational person to see, that the economy is in a downward spiral. Nothing seems to be in place to stop the haemorrhage. Maybe one’s rational is someone’s irrational but facts never lie and I chose to stick by them.

The Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act is a noble and laudable act but remains the biggest impediment to attracting and retaining Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

The act is an avoidable self-inflicted constraint which must be repealed or massively amended. The imperative should be to grow the economy first rather than sharing the inherited diminished Rhodesian industry crumbs.

If the government has candid conversations with itself the truth will prevail that Zimbabwe no longer has any significant industries to “indigenise “and resultantly create new employement. The industries are now too few and almost run down such that most are not worth the effort of making a business plan to acquire the loved 51% equity.

Priority should be to seek new capital to propagate new industries then think of a properly structured indigenisation policy or act maybe 10 or so years from now when the national cake is enlarged. Further unrelenting barrage of pronouncements on the act undermines any hope of job creation, increase in tax base and export growth.

It’s impossible to create a country of 6 million entrepreneurs so the act is rather a loud sounding nothing piece of legislation to the masses.

The indigenisation law is an attempt to appease the same old Zimbabweans who have means to benefit from the government largesse. It may be painful to the policy makers to know that the 90% of the unemployed care less of the ideology of ownership more so when these owners are the same faces who benefited from the land reform.

Many have truly said that choosing not to choose is a choice in and of it. Deciding not to decide has as many consequences as the decision – but it is easier to hide behind the nonsensical “its policy” thing.

Analysis and facts show that a once self-sufficient agro based Zimbabwean economy has dismally failed to produce maize, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, wheat and many basic agro products for its citizens a decade and half after “ land reform”.

The choice we have to make is to make a hard climb-down .Humiliating as it may sound, it is the most simple and rational decision to make.

It is better to bring contract farmers and joint ventures farming partners with expertise to do part farming for us irrespective of their colour, origin, ethnic or nationality, even if they are the same expelled and loathed farmers.

The country will benefit from sufficiency, investment, job creation, and contract farming fees, taxes, export growth, imports reduction and more importantly the reincarnation of downstream industries.

The government then can concentrate its energy and resources to support vulnerable small scale and peasant farmers then leave commercial farming to experts. Commercial farming is ideally a full time business which requires dedication in time resources.

Bulawayo vendors

Entrepreneurship support can help grow Zimbabwe’s economy

All of these challenges are characteristic of the informal sector. Coupled with all of these, are government policies on increased taxes and ill-timed market liberalisation which has meant that some entrepreneurs have been forced out of business or leading to static business growth.

In recent years, all over the world, the promotion of entrepreneurship as an insurrection to solving numerous economic and social challenges facing developing countries has been receiving significant attention by, governments, policy makers and the academic fraternity.

Notwithstanding the attention that has been given, little has been done in trying to empower aspiring entrepreneurs and those in practice other than scuttlebutt street talk that has hyped on the topic. With the said magnitude of awareness there is now need to take a huge leap forward through providing support to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship is the ingenious act of spotting an economic gap and marshalling the available resources in an efficient manner to move into that gap. It leads to investment and job creation. It besides being the most imminent way of solving both the social and economic woes bedevilling developing countries like Zimbabwe, a little has been done for its promotion but a lot has been done for its awareness.

A lot has been done in encouraging entrepreneurship by the Government, civic society, academic institutions and the corporate world. Why then does it seem like little change has been felt since such calls has been made for such a long time? Lest we change our approach to solving the problem, then the status quo won’t be averted.
Zimbabwe needs entrepreneurial education from a tender age supported by entrepreneurial promotion at a ripe age. By this I mean, pupils have to be taught entrepreneurship in schools and they then find the support they need to start-up as they are maturing.

An array of challenges, is affecting aspiring entrepreneurs in their savvy and zeal to establish successful enterprises that can change quite a good number of livelihoods in the country. Main constraints include negative interference in markets, such as over-regulation and bureaucracy by Government arms, especially in the process of registering a new start-up.

This kind of interference is also being exerted by larger enterprises in the form of monopolies, collusion and unfair trade practises. In such cases, the government has to intervene to maintain fair competition for the protection of start-ups and promotion of entrepreneurship.

Due to the said challenges, too many entrepreneurs are currently working in the informal sector of the economy. Few businesses are registered. Many of their businesses suffer from fluctuating production and have difficulties accessing capital and wider markets, poor infrastructure and other amenities and a lack of structured land tenure system.

The introduction of innovation and new products and services by entrepreneurs thrives in an environment where governments create the enabling atmosphere. This can be achieved through the use of institutional and policy objectives to establish the best conditions possible enabling individuals to bet on the future with the goal to creating value. Empowering people to take entrepreneurial initiatives and helping them to build formidable businesses has been one of the most effective ways of reducing poverty and putting peoples life into their own hands.

Entrepreneurship can only flourish in Zimbabwe if the government can help in removing the barriers to business start-up. The Government can also encourage start-ups through the use of an incentive-based structure of taxation and regulation that rewards initiative and calculated risk-taking. Simple rules of registration allow businesses to start up quickly and get on with the task of providing goods and services to the market thereby contributing to the GDP of the country.

The level of regulation affects whether entrepreneurs make the positive choice of entering the formal economy instead of the informal. A positive choice will ensure more revenue to the government in terms of tax inflow and the plight of the people will also be uplifted as more wealth is created and more jobs are also created.

A stronger culture needs to be promoted among those who are not entrepreneurs especially the youth are an important target group in this cause. They can be encouraged to think about business ownership as a career option and to combine it with technical skills. Promoting such a culture among youth can be effected through the education and training system.
The Government can then take part in making the environment conducive for small business that can go a long way in poverty reduction through the development of vibrant and productive small enterprises.

 

The challenges faced by small enterprises in Zimbabwe

women selling vegies

It is well known to economists and development practitioners that in any given country the majority of economic activities are carried out by small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and that the best way of fighting poverty is to capacitate small businesses. 

The SMEs include the corner vendor, the village cobbler, the growth point grocer shop, the backyard chicken producer, the cottage tailor and any other businesses that feel small. If you look at an individual vegetable vendor you could see an insignificant person but if you imagine that there are, say, a million of them in Zimbabwe and that each one of them sells an average of $2 worth of veggies a day (which gives us a whooping $2 million a day and a staggering $728 million per year) then you will begin to see that, small as they are in their individual capacities, collectively they are a special.

The first obstacle that SMEs face is that of lack of access to capital from financial institutions. The causes of that are multiple. They include (but are not limited to) the perception by financiers that financing SMEs constitute a higher risk, lack of collateral which bankers insist on having if they are to give loans to SMEs, the fact that the banks do not have departments that are adequately resourced to deal with the financial needs of SMEs who are either serviced through the retail banking staff who do not have enough skills to deal with business banking or through banks’ microfinance departments which by and large are treated as social responsibility projects by banks, absence of business track record due to the fact that most SMEs are informal businesses which sometimes do not even bank their sales revenues, perceived lack of business management skills and lack of know-how on how to raise capital from banks.

In instances where SMEs do get the loans from banks the terms (which include interest rates) are usually very stringent. Because of this lack of access to finance from deposit taking institutions SMEs end up borrowing from money lenders whose average interest rates of 30% per month are too heavy for any business’ cash flows to carry and hence put SMEs in unnecessary financial burden and distress.
Related to the foregoing obstacle are the twin evils of lack of access to credit terms from suppliers and insistency of large corporate clients on getting credit terms from small businesses. Getting credit from your suppliers is the cheapest source of finance for a business. 

http://www.herald.co.zw/editorial-comment-time-to-harness-informal-sector/