Terrible unemployment

Never before in my whole life (I will be 73 in November) have I prayed my daily Lord's Prayer more earnestly than now, when we are facing so many crises: monetary crisis, political crisis, unemployment crisis, etc.

The words "give us today our daily food" have more meaning as never before, which in normal times (when US$1 = Rp 2,500) I usually uttered in a matter-of-fact tone.

It seems to me that unemployment has overwhelmed the whole world. Perhaps it is not more keenly felt than in South Korea. Review magazine, June 4, 1998, shows a young office employee sleeping on the stairs of an office building; he was impeccably dressed with his briefcase beside him.

Employees who were laid off (because the company has gone bankrupt) are too ashamed to tell their wives and children that they are out of work, so they leave their homes at the usual time and wander aimlessly the whole day on the underground train system.

A horrible account of a family's mass suicide was reported by Newsweek, June 8, 1998, as follows: Choi, 37, buried his father (who hanged himself) two days later. The very next day he decided that with little prospects of getting a job, he might as well join his father.

First he killed his two children -- a son, 7, and a daughter, 5, -- by making them drink pesticide, then he hanged his wife and himself in a greenhouse overlooking his father's grave.

My nephew's friend, who was laid off by his company, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, was so downhearted that the mental depression that followed necessitated him being treated at the hospital. And considering the cost of hospital expenses, it made matters worse for him.

Even prosperous Japan's unemployment rate is at 4.7 percent and female employees go first when a company deems it necessary to reduce employees. I believe that the world depression is in full swing.

A. DJUANA

Jakarta