There is no place for the uneducated in todays workforce. Discuss.

EDWARD YO XI OLIMPIADE IPH EAST

Unlike in the pre-historic age, the modern world is divided into classes of labor with
their own functions. In my view, both the uneducated and educated have their own
places in today's workforce. However, many individuals persistently argue that an
ideal workforce is one that fully employs educated workers. In this essay, I will
outline some examples that explain why it is not ideal to not have any uneducated
person in today's workforce.
First of all, selecting only the educated rather than both uneducated and educated
may lead to shortage of workers. Eventually, a shortage of workers will result in
reduced productivity and company's income. In this case, the Batalia Corporate
incident serves as a great example. A leading company in the Saudi Arabia, Batalia
Corporate employs more than 70 percent of the total citizens there. The company
works in the field of extracting and manufacturing oil from under the sea. However,
in the early 2000s, the company's owner, Majdi Punjabi, thought that the company
should begin to sort its employees based on their education level. He thought that
this change of course would help the company gain more profit by employing more
creative and intelligent staffs. In 2001, potential workers wanting to work in the
company must had at least a Master's degree. Contrary to Majdi's expectation, the
company actually failed to fill its workers capacity. There were not many educated
people there than there were uneducated individuals. The number of workers
entering the company in 2001 decreases by 62 percent compared to that in 2000.
Because of lack of workers, the work inside became disordered as workers were
often forced to multitask and could not focus on a single work. Hundreds of
complaints were sent to the company because of poor service, and the profit of the
company could not compensate its loss. As a result, Batalia Corporate was shut
down in 2003 due to bankruptcy.
Moreover, a high concentration of educated workers requesting to work in the same
workfirld may lead to increased competition. Eventually, overwhelming competition
for work will lead to higher number of unemployment. An epitome for this
phenomenon can be illustrated from the crisis of workfield in Indonesia during 1990
to 1996. During that period, the people of Indonesia had that arrogant,
condescending mindset: in order to have a good social standing and status, one had
to become managers and directors rather than common staffs or taxi drivers. They
valued pride and society acceptance much more than work prospect and career. At
that time, more and more Indonesians strived to get high education in order to get
accepted as managers in well-known companies. However, as everyone had the
same mindset, the number of applications directed to the same job field exceeded
its limit. Too many people applied for the manager positions, while very few of them

applied to become taxi drivers and social workers. In other words, there are too
many educated people than there are uneducated people. No one wanted to work in
the "low-class" workfield, and so competition for the "upper-class" workfield
increased. Out of 200 educated applicants, only 5 were chosen to become
managers. This left the other 195 unemployed, as they still refused to lower their
work class preference.
In conclusion, both cases of the Batalia incident and Indonesia's work crisis
exemplify how an imbalance between educated and uneducated workers can result
in great problems. Hence, I absolutely agree that there is indeed a place for the
uneducated in the workforce.