Today, having a job remains a priority, but that alone isn’t enough. For a long time, the goal was simply “to have something,” a certain stability that would allow you to get by, but now the question has shifted: does that job provide a minimum level of peace of mind?
Because more and more, you see people who are employed yet live with a constant sense of falling behind, always one step behind. Work remains a central axis—it organizes life, provides structure, gives identity, but it starts to fall short when it doesn’t guarantee basic, dignified working conditions.
Alongside this, there is a reality that rarely makes headlines, the small business owners and the self-employed. They are the group that sustains much of the street-level employment we see, who open each morning with more uncertainties than certainties, and who, in many cases, take on significant personal risks to keep their businesses going. Yet their daily life is increasingly conditioned by a host of factors that are not always understood from the outside, such as soaring, erratic tax pressure, constant regulatory changes, and complex bureaucracy, causing a continual sense that they must devote more energy to surviving than to growing.
And this is compounded by a particularly delicate issue: raising wages is necessary and hardly negotiable when we talk about dignity at work. The problem arises when these raises coincide with a generalized rise in costs in the form of supplies, rents, payroll taxes, and raw materials. For many small outfits, that balance just won’t hold any longer not because they don’t want to improve their workers’ conditions, but because they can’t absorb it without risking the viability of the business. And that’s where a dangerous dynamic begins—in the form of more effort, thinner margins, and, in many cases, a progressive loss of profitability that ends up taking its toll.
Consequences for Everyone
The consequences don’t stay limited to the entrepreneur; when keeping a business running becomes a hurdle race, hiring stops being an opportunity and becomes a decision that’s scrutinized. That ends up affecting the broader labor market, locking us into a dynamic of less movement, more uncertainty, and greater difficulty in creating stable employment. Meanwhile, larger firms tend to have more room to maneuver, which introduces an imbalance that deserves closer scrutiny.
The debate, in any case, shouldn’t be framed in terms of sides. It’s not about choosing between workers or business owners, but understanding that both are part of the same system. Without dignified conditions there is no quality employment, but without viable businesses there is no employment either. Finding that balance, beyond simplistic or populist rhetoric, is likely one of today’s major challenges.
In the end, talking about work today is about more than economics; it’s about stability, life projects, well-being, the ability to build without constantly being on the edge, recognizing that behind many small businesses there aren’t impersonal structures, but people and families who depend directly on everything working. Perhaps that’s where any serious reflection should begin, understanding that employment is not just a number, but a deeply human reality.
And add to this a hard-to-ignore feeling, when progress is always funded by the same people, while others capitalize on the narrative without ever taking responsibility for creating jobs or sustaining a real structure, the system starts to tilt out of balance. Measures that, on paper, sound good, but whose costs fall disproportionately on those who are already at the limit. And thus an uncomfortable dynamic sets in: some gain visibility and recognition, while others bear the daily worry of balancing the books, sustaining teams, and asking once again, how the party will be paid for.
Ismael Dorado. Psychologist and Criminologist. Professor at UNIE University, CEU San Pablo University, and the International University of La Rioja (UNIR). Director of the Center for Health, Clinical and Forensic Psychology.
