Or, is it wrong for rich people to have jobs when there are so many unemployed people that could benefit from the work?

It’s a social dilemma that I heard posed the other day on the radio. It wasn’t a real topic of conversation, just a comment made in passing as a joke (I think), but I’ve been thinking about it and wanted to throw it out there.

Obviously, the assumption is that the rich don’t “need” jobs to maintain their wealth. Rich people are just rich because…well, just because. It’s not because they worked harder than everyone else or had a better idea about something or are passionate about their careers. Rich people are rich and involuntarily unemployed people are poor and that’s just the way life is. And while I think that sentiment kind of captures the core fallacy in the thinking that wealthy people should somehow donate their jobs to those more needy, I got to thinking about how something like that might work in practice. And not necessarily in the extreme rich-to-poor scenario that Robin presented.
Let’s say you have a job as a manager of a shoe store and you have been trained in every aspect of the role. You’re a fantastic shoe store manager, but you’ve grown tired of the grind and the smell and you’re ready to move on. But rather than simply put in your two weeks and start applying for that grocery store position you’ve been spying, you go to your employer with the following proposal:

I will find a candidate to take my position and I will fully train them for 2 months. During the training period, my candidate will be subject to all standard corporate background checks and screenings and will be paid 50% of my normal pay rate. I will receive the remaining 50% during the training period. At the end of the training period, you have the option to hire or reject my candidate. If the candidate is rejected, I return to work. So there is no risk for you as the employer.

If you hire my hand-picked replacement, I will negotiate his or her salary directly based on my final salary with your company. If I can get them to accept 75% of my previous salary and they are happy to do the same work I was doing, I will then keep the remaining 25% for the duration of their employment with your company. As they work their way up in the company and receive raises, my portion of their salary will be reduced until they eventually reach the level of my previous compensation. At that point, I am no longer compensated and your obligation to me is terminated.

I know there are holes in this approach, but I’ve just been thinking about it from a social standpoint. If this system were to be practiced, there would be great incentive to offer job training and work to the otherwise unemployed and perhaps under-educated. Of course, they’ll work for less! And it wouldn’t have to come from risk-averse companies and corporations that are unwilling to move away from the cookie-cutter job candidates. Opportunity-seeking employees would be the ones assuming the risks.

And those same employees, a.k.a, “the rich”, could make nice residual income on the salary difference they negotiated with their replacement. This process could theoretically continue indefinitely, snowballing residual income for the “already rich” while providing jobs for the unemployed.

We’ll refer to this little rant as “extreme hypothetical” or “paint-fume induced dementia”…but I still wanted to throw it out there.

Tags: career advancement, innovative recruiting, job seeker tips, training a replacement, unemployment solutions

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