The Northern parts of France, the traditional industrial areas, are being blighted by job woes. The last coal mines shut down in 1974, and the textile industry is quietly moving to greener pastures, for that read, cheaper labour. The folk living in these areas have requested answers from their political candidates running for the French presidency. According to some women interviewed in Poix-du-Nord, who have jobs in a CMT factory until its closure in October 2007, when they asked their candidate Royal as to what she had to say about their impending job losses, all the response they got was ‘Good Luck’.

The question which begs to be answered though, is whether it is the responsibility of government to ensure its citizens have employment? In my view it is a yes and no situation. Yes, because the education, which is determined by government, on offer to the junior citizens of a country will determine whether they will be able to carve out a living for themselves. How much of the syllabus in schools in the UK and Europe, for instance, deals with self-employment, entrepreneurship, financial management skills, economics, marketing, public relations, management etc. With other words, do schools cover skills required by people to start their own business, or does the education handed out, encourage drones. Drones would imply that working for an organisation would be more suitable, than trying to make a living with ones own business.

If education, which has become a government department, produces young people whose main focus is to find employment because alternatives are not even considered as they do not have skills to start their own business, then government surely needs to provide its citizens with employment? So Madame Royal, your answer shouldn’t have just been Good Luck. Of course there are some exceptions to this rule, for instance in the information technology area where young people are so innovative that they are ahead of formal industry, one such example being YouTube.

Big Brother government is already interfering in almost everything else. One would therefore be reluctant to be dictated to as well as to where one works and at what jobs. Which would surely be the outcome if government were to take on the responsibility of providing employment. It’s not really an option.

However, unemployment problems are not going away. If the textile industry moves to Thailand for instance, or to China because of cheaper labour, in ten years time, the textile or car manufacturing industries as another example, could be moving to Venezuela or wherever. It will move to whatever country offers the best incentives to cut costs and increase profits. Profit is the bottom line. This trend has been on the cards for many years. Natural resources are subject to the same kind of instability. In Northern France the coal mines closed in 1974. On the other hand in Johannesburg South Africa, the city known for its yellow mountains of gold mining dumps, will soon find itself without its mine dump landmarks. The Gold price is high enough at the moment for these mountains to be re-mined!

I would suggest firing the staff, who are out of touch with modern society, in government education departments! OK, maybe not that drastic a step. Possibly Richard Branson would take on the job of revamping the education department in the UK? He would certainly be a person who would understand what is required in modern society. He should be able to identify the skills set and knowledge that young people would need in order to make their way as successful entrepreneurs. That is what is required to combat unemployment. It requires a total mind change and new set of skills to be taught.