Hopeton Morrison, Contributor

As increasing numbers of companies engage in ongoing restructuring, more persons are made redundant and find themselves facing the new year without a source of regular income.

For single households this can be nothing short of devastating.

For dual-income households the effects, although mitigated, are still far reaching.

If you are heading towards the new year and faced with unemployment, you can turn this crisis into an opportunity.

Here are some ideas for you.

You are not alone: All across the globe companies are engaging in ongoing restructuring to survive in the global market space. GraceKennedy Limited is only the latest of our listed companies to shed staff recently in its ongoing restructuring. National Commercial Bank engaged in this exercise at least once in the last 12 months.

And, if you keep up with the wave of mergers that are taking place locally, there will be more job cuts to facilitate the drive for economies among our large and small corporations.

If your place of employment offers you a short-term contract, forget pride and accept it: 'A bird in hand is worth two in the bushes' and a short-term contract is exactly that, a bird in hand.

The same principle goes if you are offered alternative employment elsewhere at a cut in salary. Better will come but it often takes a while in coming.

Increasing numbers of professional persons, highly-experienced, educated and skilled are being let go: If you fall in that category there is a very strong possibility that your experience and competence will ensure not only that you survive a redundancy, but that you are actually better off for it.

It is the unskilled and untrained who suffer the most from a redundancy exercise.

Migration

Migration is always an option: And there are good reasons why Jamaicans migrate to the countries that they do.

World Bank data for 2004 list the United States as the world's richest economy at US$11.6 trillion.

Japan, ranked 2nd, is a mere US$4.6 trillion economy and Canada, ranked 9th, was approximately US$1 trillion.

But, even more crucially, when measured by GDP per capita, the Bahamas was ranked an impressive 32 in the world at US$17,400. In fact, Antigua ranked 39th, Trinidad and Tobago ranked 40th and St. Kitts ranked 42nd, are all way ahead of us here in Jamaica, ranked 81st.

Small wonder then that so many Jamaicans gravitate to these countries seeking employment.

But if you chose to migrate, there are major financial and other decisions involved.

You must factor relocation costs, the three-12 months that you could be searching for work and weigh these costs against less intrinsic but far more important returns such as the impact on your family.

For quite a number of Jamaicans, the price of migration is the disintegration of a once happy and united family.

If you are close to 55, you might be considering the retirement option: As attractive as that may appear, the basic rule of thumb is that you can afford to retire only if your inflows are at least 75 per cent of your last pay cheque.

If that is not so forget it as you will be forced out of retirement sooner rather than later out of sheer need.

It is time to retool: There are industries that are growing by leaps and bounds in Jamaica. The tourism sector is on a rapid climb upwards. With billions of dollars in FDIs flowing into this sector, there are increasing numbers of jobs for skilled persons in hospitality.

Data entry

The data entry sector is another high-growth industry. And you have heard about the dire shortage of quality nurses and teachers. Agriculture, moribund for several years, has been having a good year and it will be a long time before we produce enough pepper to meet the global demand for Jamaican jerk seasoning.

Then there is the entrepreneurial option: Bear in mind that not everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship but, as always, 'necessity is the mother of invention' and some of Jamaica's richest and most successful entrepreneurs started when their backs were literally against the wall following a redundancy.

Finally, remember that no organisation owes any of us a job. The responsibility to ensure your financial independence and sustainability is yours alone. Tough times require tough decisions. Make the tough decision now and face the new year with the resolve that where there is a will, there is a way.

hmorrison@stccu.com.