Critique of Ashley Stoots blog post

                I was greatly intrigued by Ashley Stoot’s blog in which she summarized an article on unemployment.  The article talked a lot about the different benefits and/or downfalls to the predicament of unemployment, such as having the opportunity to re-establish personal connections or possibly having personal and emotional struggles. These are all important aspects to look at. I never really thought about the personal struggles that can often come with unemployment and I was glad Ashley brought that out of the article.

                One section of the article that I questioned was the paragraph that started with “[u]nemployment is a product of capitalism”. It seems as if the author was implying that a capitalist economy is the main if not sole reason that we have unemployed citizens. This may be the case, but I don’t necessarily believe that’s a bad thing. Of course unemployment is not good for our economy, but a perfect capitalist economy wouldn't have unemployed citizens. What I am trying to say is that I think the problem of unemployment has more to do with a flawed economy in general than with the type of economy we have.

                Another part of the article explained in more detail the idea of “work-sharing”. I find it interesting that the author of the article thought this would be such a great idea. They emphasized the benefit of keeping workers self-esteem up. However, I can’t see how it would help us to make the workers self-esteem a priority because if we were to cut every worker back 15 hours a week instead of laying off a few workers, every single worker would feel as if their job was being cut instead of only the few that would have been laid off. However, each company would have to decide what the best route is for them because no company is the same. As we have talked about in class, the decision of cutting hours or laying employees off can be difficult because the future is not always predictable. As explained in the article, many employers are more concerned about the morale in the workplace. They no longer need to worry about the morale of employees they have laid off.

                Ashley did an excellent job of explaining the article in detail. I was impressed by her thoroughness and her explanation of the different aspects of the topic led me to critique her blog post. I was interested to see another person’s point of view on the possible solutions for the huge issue of unemployment. However, after what we have learned this semester in class, I believe that a work-sharing strategy would not be the best approach to the issue of unemployment.