Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

Corporate Jobs: a new form of slavery

Prepared for

Miss Manahil Khattri

Prepared by

Ali Haider Valliani – 1847104

Maalik Ul Ashtar – 1847118

May 31, 2020

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

Letter of Transmittal
st
Date: 31 May 2020

Miss Manahil Khattri

Business and Technical English Writing,

SZABIST University, Karachi.

Dear Miss Khattri:

We are pleased to submit our term report on the topic assigned by you that is “Corporate jobs: a
new form of slavery”. This report was a challenging task but though an interesting one, it helped
us gain a lot of experience about the corporate world. This report gave us opportunity to have
an in-dept analysis of difference real-life situations faced by many people working as corporate
workers.

This report discussed about the modern slavery that is the slavery at the corporate jobs, it
discusses that unfair and inhumane behaviors at the workplace, and how they affect the
efficiency and the quality of work by the workers. We also conducted the survey, asking both
men and women some questions about corporate slavery and what are their point of view on
that to get a first-hand information. We get to know that majority of people prefer
entrepreneurship over corporate job.

We put on our complete effort in completing this report according to the rubrics provided, also
we are thankful to you for your guidance and help in completion of the report. Along with that we
owe gratitude to websites who provided extensive information on this topic.

We would be happy to provide assistance in interpreting, if required. Also, we request you to

excuse our mistakes and appreciate our efforts.

Your Sincerely,

Maalik Ul Ashtar (1847118)

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

Ali Haider Valliani (1847104)

Table of Contents
Letter of Transmittal..................................................................................................................ii
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................ 3
Body........................................................................................................................................... 4
Survey Findings....................................................................................................................... 13
Conclusion............................................................................................................................... 15
Recommendations................................................................................................................... 16
References............................................................................................................................... 17
Appendix.................................................................................................................................. 19

Figure 1..................................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 2..................................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 3..................................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 4..................................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 5..................................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 6..................................................................................................................................... 10

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

Executive Summary
Corporate slavery means working for large corporations with long working hours. They

have strict policies on absences and repeated tasks. Corporate jobs don’t leave room

for personal development. People tend to do corporate jobs not because they like the

job but because of the benefits it brings along. Corporate jobs have benefited people in

many ways like it gives exposure and experience while working with different people on

different projects. It provides incentives and benefits such as pick and drop services and

memberships to other recreational parks etc. Some companies provide health and life

insurances which attracts most of the people. Corporates jobs not only have pros but

have cons as well, the 9am-5pm working hours are very stressful. Employees have to

work overtime and need to take their work at home which kills their family time. Mostly

they don’t even get bonus or rewards for their extra time. People tend to lose their

decision-making capabilities because they have to ask higher authorities before making

any decision. There are several reasons that people are involved with corporations or

businesses that have them enslaved. They might want the money, or it could be about

having a status. It may be ego driven. They like the fact that when they get promotions,

titles as a reward and all of this strokes their ego and makes them feel superior. That is

why it has been given a name such as narcissism as well as Labrador climbing in the

corporate world. A survey was conducted asking both men and women some questions

about corporate slavery and what are their point of view. Most of the people believed

that corporate jobs take most of their time and make their lives stressful. hours,

pressure from bosses, and low salary package, no job security makes them stressed.

Therefore, it is been seen that recently people are moving towards the

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entrepreneurship, having new startups, and putting all their effort and becoming

successful. In this current situation of pandemic, people who are newbies should opt for

family business as it is a save option for them. Those individuals who have high

experience in corporate world and are in a much better position should go for

entrepreneurship as they are quite experienced and they have an element of risk taking

in them, which will help them in their startup.

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

Introduction

Slavery? What is it? The word slavery means to an individual subjected to hard work

assigned by higher authoritative and it can be in any field, industry or area of life.

Corporate Jobs are high paying and white-Collar job and tends paying handsome profit

in the market. They have high working hours, strict policy on absences and few paid

leaves. However, Corporate jobs measures rigid employee performance, repeated

tasks, and low salary packages. Most Corporate jobs leaves no room for personal

development. Long working hours does not allow employees to spend time alone to

refresh and revitalize. The highly specialized working environment demotivates any

individual to learn new concepts and aspects of the business. For example, a finance

manager in a company wishes to learn lawsuit techniques then he must leave his jobs

to learn a new skill, which get almost too impossible for employee to exercise new skill.

Slavery, which existed few years a back was just a social evil and brutal. Hence,

corresponding Slavery with Corporate job seems senseless, but there some

characteristics, which gives evidence of individual being a modern Corporate slave. The

rewards in the corporate job must be attractive but sometimes due to growth

opportunities and tireless efforts for one appreciation/promotion exceeds the rewards

system.

However, it is interesting to notice how the corporate jobs are affected due to this

plethoric pandemic, which has shattered the way employees of corporate Firms work.

We will discuss about changes in work style in detail, filtering out the pros and cons,

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multidimensional perspectives and future of Corporate Jobs keeping in mind that the

launch of Artificial Intelligence would eradicate 50 Million Jobs worldwide.

Body

Through the products that you consume on a daily basis you may unknowingly be

employing slave labor. How does this still exist in 2020? The truth is that modern day

slavery can be found in every corner of the earth, whether it is sex trafficking hubs like

Atlanta, factories in China or even farms in South America. This is a global issue, but

there is hope. Luckily, we are more equipped than ever before as individuals to fight this

injustice but before we can do that, we must first understand the complexities of this

issue. It does not look like it used to but rather it has disguised itself behind curtains of

industrialism and hotel walls though it may not be the slavery of plantations and slave

ships. One thing remains, vulnerable individuals are taken advantage of and held

against their will. Currently, slavery is the world’s largest growing illegal industry with

over 150 billion dollars in revenue each year. There are also 45 million men, women

and children and slave today. To put that in perspective there are more enslaved

individuals in the world than there are Canadian citizens, one common form of modern-

day slavery that is talked about a lot is corporate slavery.

Corporate slavery refers to any work or service that an individual does against their will

under the threat of punishment for little or no pay. Sadly, this also is an issue that

happens domestically. Through the study done by Polaris Project they found there are

legal immigrants who come to this country on temporary work visas for agricultural

work, who are targeted by their employers. The employers take away their

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documentation and transport them to unfamiliar location and often these emigrants do

not speak English and cannot advocate on behalf of themselves, leaving them

vulnerable to violations of fair labor practices. These emigrants are also housed in

terrible conditions and paid little to nothing even brands we know, and love can

unintentionally engage in forced labor. The products that we buy on everyday basis

have slavery embedded in them.

What is the motive of people who say, “I love my job”? If they genuinely loved their job,

why do they need to say it? There are two main reasons:

 They do not love their job, but the benefits it brings for example, money.

 They are not trying to convince themselves that they love their job rather than

others.

That is because they do not want to admit that something, they spend most of their

waking hours doing is a waste of their life. If people absolutely loved their job, surely,

they would be getting paid to do one of their hobbies. Of course, there are few people

who at least outwardly have a fun job. For example, some people get paid to play video

games full time (especially in Korea and Japan). Although, lots of people would call this

their dream job, even these professional gamers would be under pressure or a lot of

stress, that is, they are only able to make living from it as long as they continue winning

in the video games competition. It is not quite the same as lying down on your couch

and playing a game on the Xbox.

However, there are some pros and cons of corporate jobs, which we will be discussing

in detail.one of the biggest advantage in corporate job, is the opportunity for networking,

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interacting with fellow members in the organization, working on diversified project which

are fully challenging may find interesting or source of motivation for some employees.

All these activities uplift the mood of an employee leading to increased exposure in such

busy and stressful environments. The second foremost advantage is incentives and

benefits provided to the employees like pick and drop facilities, membership to

recreational activities like Club and discount on Air travel on a specific airlines. Some

organization also provides health benefits in terms of health insurance and life

insurance which provides extra safety in employees peace of mind that due to any

misfortunate events, the company will be providing his/her family financially for a

specific period of timeframe. However, these benefits and perks do not matter to every

employee but for majority employees these perks are considered as baseline and add

on safety and protection not only to themselves but to their families as well. The third

advantage is the flexible work option in corporate culture has made employees life easy,

it is left on their own interest and comfortability that whatever way the want to work they

are free to do, whether to do work in office or working solitude in their homes. Corporate

jobs are well renounced in personal development of their employees by introducing high

structured training program, which not only enhances employee’s specialized skills but

also becomes the gateway to more lucrative career opportunities. Despite too many

pros, there are also few corns in corporate jobs. The first disadvantage is that

employees working in corporate environment often seems to be frustrated with the long

working hours, which exhausts them. Especially the 9am-5pm working schedules in

Pakistan becomes really stressful and tiring for the employees and they often complain

of coming to office six days a week, leaving with only one extra day to relax and spend

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time with their loved ones in the family. The second most disadvantage is never ending

meetings with limited time duration due to which employees need to also work extra in

their homes and an individual is forced to complete office work at home sacrificing their

family time. The third disadvantage is the office politics which becomes the hardcore

issues impacting the healthy work environment and leading to demotivation in employee

which in long term affects the overall work productivity. The fourth disadvantage is that

no extra rewards or benefits not any extra salary is given for working overtime to

complete specific task or no compensation is made and even work on Eid Holidays. The

fifth and the last disadvantage is the loss of freedom, you cannot solely do the decision-

making in a corporate culture. Before taking any step or any small decision, you need to

consult the higher authorities in an organization. Due to limited time and biasness, most

of the time your valuable opinion might be ignored leaving employees think that the

organization does not value their perspectives and opinion, which might lead to high

turnovers or absenteeism in long run.

Why to work? People going for work every day just to do the monotonous work. The

reason behind doing this type of work is to pay off the mortgage. The whole system has

been designed to keep the bulk of people performing menial work. If you want to live in

even a simple house, you must be working for full hours or even overtime. The banks

simply will not allow you to get a mortgage without gainful employment. Once you have

mortgage, you are not allowed to leave it, you need to continue working, or else lose

your home. From society’s point of view the following proverb is most appropriate – “Idle

hands are the devil’s playthings”. That is, people who have nothing to do are more likely

to get up to no good. It is a bit of an antiquated notion. It could be agreed upon if people

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do not have access to any resources. That’s, if everyone around you works and has a

nice house and car, but you are stuck in a cheap apartment with little food and money,

then yes, you are probably more likely to go out and commit crime. However, if we lived

in a society where work was not a priority, and everyone had access to all the

necessities of life, then people would be much less likely to go out and cause trouble.

Greed would no longer be an issue and people would be free to pursue things they are

truly interested in, such as, art and music (currently professions that often receive very

little salary).

Corporate slavery also has an effect in household matters, such as, childcare.

Nowadays, both parents are working in the family because they feel this is the only way

to give their children a sufficiently good upbringing. The idea of your wife staying at

home to look after the children has become old. Even the government encourages

mothers to get back to work as soon as possible. This somehow ends up with children

getting stuck in daycares for all day.

Nowadays, the concept of work-life balance has gained a lot of popularity. It is an

absurd concept mainly used by companies in order to get employees believe that their

company is best for work. They force employers to talk about work-life balance in their

meetings. Companies like to convince us that they care about us, but we all know that

this is untrue. There is only one thing that companies care about in this modern

capitalist age- “money”. If they do not make a profit, then the Company fails. If they pay

too many wages, or give too many holidays, their company fails. It is not in a company

interest to give their workers too much free time or freedom. They give us just enough to

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make us feel that they care about us and that we are part of the corporate family. Lies,

lies, and more lies.

Full-time work, what does it entail? People say, you go to work and after working for

eight hours a day you return home. But actually, it is more than that, it involves getting

up an hour before work, the least. Takes minimum 30 minutes to get ready and then

goes the travelling time. Now, this was the bare minimum. Some people must travel up

to two hours one-way. They had to fight traffic or stand in crowded public transport. Not

only is the travelling period, but there also the extra hours at home thinking about work.

Nobody can simply “turn off” after work and forget about everything that happened

during the day. If you add up all the time travelling, thinking, and actually doing work, it’s

more like 12 to 13 hours of work per day.

When we are at work, are we really working? Most people actually do not work for eight

hours a day- far from it. Estimate, most people would only work for half of that – so, four

hours a day. After lunch, they start to feel tired and have a little motivation to continue

working on the big project. Having several meetings, a day, mostly on trivial matter such

as how to keep the workplace clean and tidy, or How to welcome the new Chinese staff.

Some days might also feel like one big meeting. Returning home thinking, “I haven’t

achieved a single thing today – why did I go to work?” of course full-time work is a

misnomer. It really should be called full-time attendance. As long as you are at work for

eight hours a day, you’ll generally get your paycheck.

The whole idea of full-time work is an exercise in futility. Actually, some people at work

made a programming utility that they aptly titled the “futility”. Some say they were

referring to the futility of their work. Technology is getting so advanced that soon, thanks

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to automation. we simply will not need as many workers We could comfortably get by

as a society with employees only working 15 hours a week or less. The idea of full-time

work does not suit with a culture that is ideally expected to spend more time with family

and friends. Ore’s spending more time volunteering. We must avoid pushing people to

work long hours only to be able to buy a home. The problem is that our economy needs

debt to operate, and the strongest debt (in the eyes of bankers) is mortgage. It locks

people into contracts of 30 or 40 years, and ultimately years of wage slavery.

Corporate world has become the modern form of slavery that has many people serving

it instead of god bound by the corporations rules we must show up in the morning at

their set time, take a lunch break when they say so and leave at the end of the day

when they permit. Many of us are locked in there because we’ve bought into

materialism, have taken on debt and can’t escape because our debts have us bound to

the limit that we feel, we can’t get away from the source of income.

This whole idea can hurt families in the sense that so many corporations in order for you

to get a raise and a promotion are going to move you to another town and suddenly that

splinters you off from the strength that could be found in the numbers of intimate

relationships you have and suddenly you’ve been isolated. It’s almost a narcissistic

technique to isolate the workers off in towns where they don’t know anyone whereby,

they will be better slaves.

It is truly a type of slavery where you must wake up every morning and report

somewhere because you’ve been told to report there. That’s not to say we don’t have

responsibilities; we don’t make commitments. If you have a small business you make

commitment to the client and you’ve to be there to serve the client, that is all well and

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good. But the real matter is a year after year grind where you are in obedience to

somebody who’s your manager. If you do not obey them, you risk it all. All the things

you have accumulated mostly through debt. The debtor is slave to the lender or servant

to the lender which is, slave to the lender. So, what the corporations want is for you is to

get your mortgage for you to off your debts and meanwhile you cannot go anywhere.

Everybody is getting trapped in this cycle which has been created. When you go into

debt and work for corporations, we cannot get free. If you want to get away from the

corporation where you work, you must get out of the debt.

There are several reasons that people are involved with corporations or businesses that

have them enslaved. They might want the money, or it could be about having a status. It

may be ego driven. They like the fact that when they get promotions, titles as a reward

and all of this strokes their ego and makes them feel superior. That is why it has been

given a name such as narcissism as well as Labrador climbing in the corporate world.

People who easily get influenced by others get high of feeling like they are important,

and these corporations are aware that and uses it for their own benefit.

Meanwhile, your time is totally robbed from you. You do not have much time for your

family. Even if you have a belief or faith in god, your faith and spiritual growth has been

stunted. It even gets hard to help your own children become the children of the God.

The children are entrapped by their own slavery mode or being trained to be slaves.

When we talk about countries involved in this modern slavery, Pakistan has been one of

it. Sindh and Baluchistan have allowed the workers to join in sectors such as agriculture

and fisheries. Meanwhile, the same had been advised for Punjab and Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa provinces. The other sectors with high occurrence of forced labor is

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domestic work. Though, the domestic workers policies are already been announced by

Punjab and Sindh, the legislation is still pending. It has been told that child domestic

work is not applicable for children under 18.

Modern slavery is also linked with migration, which implies the strict governance of labor

migration. Only few Pakistanis are engaged in work abroad and most of the exported

labor force is in middle east. There is also a need for labor law reform. Debts are the

most common way of keeping a person in the situation of forced labor. To control the

situation, labors laws should be applicable to all sectors of economy and all types of

workers are worthy of fundamental rights. The local government system can play an

effective role in eliminating such kind of slavery.

Millions of Pakistani workers are bound by slavery. Across the country, employers

forcefully extract labor from adults and children, not allowing freedom of movement, and

deny them the right to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment.

Employers treat workers with harsh attitudes, such as physical abuse, forced

confinement and debt bondage.

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Survey Findings
Gender If You would be given an opportunity for a
corporate job, will you go for it?

Figure 1

Do You Believe Corporate Jobs takes majority of Figure 2

your time?
The Salary Package in Corporate Jobs in
Pakistan is less attractive.

Figure 3

Figure 4
Corporate Jobs in Pakistan are really Stressful.
In current Situation, which one would you opt
for?

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

To prove our statement and the internet findings we did a survey asking few questions
Figure 6
about their view about corporate jobs or the corporate culture. 52% people when asked,

If You would be given an opportunity for a corporate job, will you go for it? Replied

“yes”, despite of the fact they know that the corporate jobs take most of their daily time,

it is not just 9.00 – 5.00 job but even more than that, they sometime have to work over-

time in order complete the project on time. For some people there is no off even on

Sunday. These overburden work, overtime working hours, pressure from bosses, and

low salary package, no job security makes them stressed. Therefore, it is been seen

that recently people are moving towards the entrepreneurship, having new startups, and

putting all their effort and becoming successful. Most of them are experimenting in the

food industry, fortunately booming. On the other hand, the corporate jobs in Pakistan is

getting low popularity because of the above quoted factors, people do not see a very

bright future doing a corporate job because of immense competition in this sector and

the compensation/ salary paid to them does not justify the work they are asked to do at

their work place, they are been overburden and even sometime asked to work over and

above their capacity, they are actually treated like slave. Recently, due to COVID-19

hundreds of people lost their job, many of them even did not receive the salaries for the

month they work. So, you see that in Pakistan the future of corporate job is not certain,

you can be firmed anytime when the company thinks that you are not of their benefit

anymore. Therefore, in Pakistan, people and even new graduates are opting for new

startups or join joining their family businesses, integrating their ideas and applying what

they have studied and in-tern expanding their businesses because they see higher and

good return in this.

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Conclusion

Summarizing the entire topic, we are all aware by the fact that due to emergence in

technology and shift in individual thinking level “Shifting to Entrepreneurship from

Corporate jobs” is increasing widely around the globe. Whatever field of industry you

name it is just getting competent and challenging day by day. Individuals need extra soft

skills to cover the gap between their knowledge, expertise and technology. There would

be constant hard work required from individuals to out beat the talent and results by the

machine and modern-day technology. We have to talk about corporate jobs as slavery

but as soon as we are entering in to the era where Artificial intelligence and their

implication is on hype it is quite ironic that we will not be given an opportunity to do even

slavery in corporate world. An individual would need to maintain this work and effort

even after work will be help him significantly to ease of this pressure. Now what I mean

by that is that an individual need to constantly upgrade their knowledge and expertise to

greater depth to counter any new upgradation by technology. Individuals will have to

focus and lead to the areas where technological advances cannot replace them. One

must notice the facts that every individual around the globe has twenty four hours which

is fixed by nature and unchangeable, thus this number cannot be increased or

decreased but interesting fact is that some people don’t tend to do something lucrative

or special after work and they call themselves as a corporate slaves. However most of

people might not find my statement true but I believe that it is the matter of everyone’s

viewpoint how they observe, judge and analyze the situation but time management is in

the hands of its own person for which he is responsible and it depends on him how

efficiently he utilizes his/her time.

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Recommendations

After discussing each component of corporate jobs in detail and keeping the current

view of pandemic in mind, I would recommend family business as a safe haven over

corporate jobs. Those individuals who have been new to the corporate world with less

expertise and knowledge, then shifting to family business would be best alternative for

them in such current scenario. One must notice that newbies who are new in industry

have high chances of being fired from an origination, this is quite practical in country like

Pakistan where there is no job security, you could be kicked out of company at any time

without any prior notice which might be really painful for an individuals who have to feed

their families. However, there is always other side to the story, those individuals who

have high experience in corporate world and are in a much better position my

recommendation for them would be to go for entrepreneurship as they are quite

experienced and they have an element of risk taking in them, which will help them in

their startup. Furthermore, experiences players of corporate world would have the

strong finances up until now so any type of loss can be offset by raising further capital in

their startup journey. Sadly, I do not see any growth in corporate jobs especially in

country like Pakistan where Sethiya culture is more promoted than the ones who are on

merit. Politics has played such a big role in destroying the structure of corporate jobs

that merit holders in search of jobs get de motivated and is often forced to start his own

business from scratch or go for family Business.

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References

 Jun 5th, 2019. Stephen Eleazer Daniel. Are corporate jobs a new form of slavery?

Retrieved from https://www.groupdiscussionideas.com/are-corporate-jobs-a-new-form-

of-slavery/

 June 21, 2016. Careerizma. 7 Signs that indicate you have become a corporate slave.

Retrieved from http://www.careerizma.com/blog/7-signs-you-are-a-corporate-slave/

 July 1995 by Human Rights Watch. CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF SLAVERY IN

PAKISTAN. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-77876, ISBN 1-56432-154-

1. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/Pakistan.htm

 AUG 09, 2012. Christian Neumeister(Intern). It's Just Business: How Corporate America

Made Slaves of the Young https://www.truthdig.com/articles/its-just-business-how-

corporate-, Daily Rant Australia. (2017, June 07). Full-time work (Modern Day Slavery)

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvKfWum8des

 Without Spot or Blemish Ministry. (2019, June 05). Corporate Slavery: Christians, Break

Free.

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG0KDmNBdA0&feature=youtu.be

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

 TEDx Talks. (2017, May 03). Breaking the shackles of modern-day slavery | Cameron

Harris | TEDxUGA. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=0iI9dwkHqnc&feature=youtu.be

 January 15, 2015. UOT Team. Corporate Slavery: GD Topic. Retrieved from

https://bestgdtopics.com/corporate-slavery/

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Appendix

Corporate Jobs: New Form of Slavery?

A Research based survey is being conducted to identify whether corporate job have become a

part of slavery in our daily lives or not. Your Honest Answers are needed to reflect the accurate

measures for this study. Hope You will enjoy filling the form. Thank You.

What is your name?

Short answer Text

Gender?

 Male

 Female

Which organisation you belong to/work for?

Short answer Text

What is your Designation? (Leave Blank If not applicable)

Short answer Text

If You would be given an opportunity for a corporate job, will you go for it?

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

 Yes

 No

 Maybe

Do You Believe Corporate Jobs takes majority of your time?

 Yes

 No

 Maybe

Corporate Jobs in Pakistan are really Stressful.

 Strongly agree

 Agree

 Neutral

 Disagree

 Strongly disagree

The Salary Package in Corporate Jobs in Pakistan is less attractive.

 Yes

 No

In current Situation, which one would you opt for?

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Corporate Slavery – Maalik & Ali

 Corporate Jobs

 Entrepreneurship

 Family Business

In your View, what is future of Corporate Jobs? Detailed Answer would be preferable?

Link of our presentation:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11GCZM6tRURTaRGbNasif5gWP55eZknlg/view

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