Jack Welch about the French entrepreneurship
On thursday, the financial newspaper La Tribune published an interesting interview of Jack Welch. Jack Welch has been the CEO of General Electric for 20 years and named Manager of the Century in 1999. I will try to roughly translate and sum up what was written in the article because it is much much longer (3/4 of a 4-column page). I wish I could find the original interview though, this seems to be taken from the New York Times Syndicate.
He was in Paris during the recent car burning fest in the suburbs, and was later interviewed by a swedish journalist who asked him what should the french goverment do ? and what should other european governments do to avoid similar problems ?
His answer was along the line of: the government must work with private companies to create jobs. Not smoke-screen jobs in the public sector, but real jobs in new companies. This can be done with the help of a fiscal and social law that is encouraging and retributing risk and investment
Apparently the journalist replied that he was dead-wrong and that to solve this problem, the government should give more money to jobless people.
Jake Welch replied that no-one will probably ever know the reason why those people were burning cars, but what is
sure, is that people looking for career evolution and financial security rarely burn cars. Those riots expressed anger and frustration, and even though freedom and dignity play a major role in hope, meaningful work does too when it offers opportunities.
In France, 20% of employees work in the public sector and 76% of people aged 15-30 years are attracted to it.
During the last 35 years, from the Wall Street Journal, the US economy created 57 millions of new jobs while Europe created only 4 millions. Why ? Because laws make investment very costly, and in France or Germany there are very few fiscal incentives for risky investments. Social laws also make it difficult to lay out employees which is a reason why companies are very cautious when it comes to hiring. (and….are….so…slow…at….taking….decisions)
Jake Welch also makes a point that this situation leads to something that starts to spread everywhere: risk aversion.
The essence of business is to manage risks, not to run away from them.
What Europe needs, is a change in fiscal and social laws to allow more flexibility. Government and companies must work together to create jobs – real jobs – . Mentalities must also evolve so that they are able to take more risks. Entrepreneurs must come out and start building the future. Yes, some of them will fail. But a lot will succeed. And so will Europe.
What a breath of fresh air to read this, thank you Jake !
There is such a gap between Jake Welch analysis and our political leaders that it is shocking. Politics excel in rhetoric and in running away from responsabilities. What we miss is a (wo)man of actions.. but I’m afraid this is way too difficult. From what I can see, every political party just do his best to to slow down or cancel what another is doing.
All this reminds me of a private conversation I had with Stefan Bodewig during the same car burningfest, even though our two countries are so close and have similar social laws, there is already quite some difference already in their application and how we are so..risk averse, here in France.
Anyway, Jake Welch, I will vote for you !
