Pathways out of poverty

The most common way to prosperity is to get a well paid job. One of ways to get a well paid job is to start with a less well paid job, do it well and work your way up the organisation. Today’s shelf stacker in the supermarket may be tomorrow’s section Head in the shop, and the store manager in due course. Another way is to do well in education and training, emerging with qualifications and skills employers need. That way you can enter higher up the pay scales when you begin. Some lack success in education, but have energy and an impulse to serve others which develops successful small businesses.

Many companies now do a good job helping their workforce to achieve more and earn more. Companies often have training programmes for those who did not get on well at school and did not leave with good relevant skills. Many companies recognise that they do not just need to attract talent, but they also need to nurture and create talent. Employers have to serve the local community in many ways, including helping people to help them as better employees. A good company appreciates it has an employer brand as well as a customer brand, and will attract better or more willing people if it has a good reputation as an employer.

Families, teachers family friends and other adults known to the young person are important and they can help. Grown up children will often get their first job whilst still living with their parents. Parental or other adult support and guidance over how to accept the disciplines of the workplace and how to make your way in the office or factory can make a difference to a person’s prospects. Just as an employee has a right to expect a caring and supportive employer, so an employer would like an employee who is keen to learn , who wishes to do well for the business and understands the importance of customer relations and customer satisfaction to the ability of the company to pay good wages.

Now we have much fuller employment that task of encouraging jobs for those still in long term unemployment is more difficult. Some find entering the job market difficult owing to a lack of role models in their families and possibly owing to drink or drugs or some mental health problem. That is why local and national government has many programmes to tackle addictions and afflictions and spends large amounts of time and money on trying to assist the most difficult to help.

Getting the better paid job is just part of the route out of poverty. It also opens up the opportunity to own assets, allowing people to establish some store of wealth for the future as well as income for the present. People make very different uses of this opportunity.