If you are like most Americans, you work more than 8.5 hours each work day. That is more time spent working than sleeping, and much more time working than doing the things you love, like spending time with family, friends or enjoying your hobbies (United States Department of Labor, 2011). For a person that works a forty year career – from the age of 22 to the age of 62, the earliest age to retire and collect Social Security (U.S. Social Security Administration, 2011) – 50 working weeks a year and the average 8.5 hour work days, the typical employed individual will work away 86,000 hours of their life. An employee essentially rents a large portion of their life to their employer; the employer is reaping the rewards of the skills and services of the employee. This is a scenario that works well for an individual who enjoys their work and is satisfied with their pay and benefits, yet studies show employees are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with many aspects of their employment.
A study by The Conference Board shows that a mere 45% of American employees are satisfied with their jobs. This is a 16% drop in just over 20 years (as cited in Pepitone, 2010). Are you one of the 55% that are not satisfied with your employment? The increase in dissatisfaction applies to many fundamentals parts of one’s job, including benefits, growth, and stability.
According to a 2011 Gallup Poll, 30% of employees are dissatisfied with health care benefits (up from 19% in 2008), 26% were dissatisfied with the outlook on potential future promotions (up from 19% in 2008), 18% were dissatisfied with job security (up from 13% in 2008). Less than half of the employees polled were completely satisfied with their job security. 30% of workers were worried about being laid off in the near future (Morales, 2011). “With more workers than jobs, workers who do have jobs may be staying in jobs that they are less satisfied with” (Morales, 2011, para. 5).
Since the recession hit in 2007, it seems the lack of employment opportunities, the risk of layoffs, long-term unemployment outlook and competition in the workplace has to lead to higher stress on the job and a much lower satisfaction in the daily grind. 86,000 hours is a great deal of time spent being unhappy, stressed or dissatisfied.
You ask why?
What Can I Do to Stop Being an Employee?
It is not surprising that many employees are unhappy with the state of the economy and their situations have caused them to considered business ownership. Recessions have been known to encourage entrepreneurialism and increase the number of small business start-ups. As of 2009, entrepreneurial efforts in the U.S. were at a 14 year high, with 558,000 new businesses being started each month (Weitekamp & Pruitt, 2010). It’s great for the economy and it’s an excellent opportunity for the business owner, labor is abundant and less expensive, equipment and resources are discounted, real estate and rent are lower. The economy relies on new, small businesses to bring the country out of the recession, by providing jobs, services and products for consumers, and an increase in confidence and spending by the business owners.
Entrepreneurship and small business growth are cornerstones to the increased growth of our economy as a whole. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses – defined as an independent business with fewer than 500 employees – employ half of the U.S.’s private sector employees, have generated 65% of net new jobs over the past 17 years (9.8 million jobs) and create more than half of the nonfarm GDP (SBA, n.d.). Starting a business can replace lost or reduced income, replace an unhappy employment situation, or give a business owner flexibility in their work-life balance that they can’t experience in a role as an employee. There are many benefits to starting a business and they are going to vary depending on your individual situation
The franchise industry is an exciting and dynamic field and offers over 3,000 opportunities.
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