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The Lost Generation (The continuing job crisis is damaging the future of our young people)
Business Week ^ | 10/9/2009 | Peter Coy

Posted on 10/10/2009 4:12:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Bright, eager—and unwanted. While unemployment is ravaging just about every part of the global workforce, the most enduring harm is being done to young people who can't grab onto the first rung of the career ladder.

Affected are a range of young people, from high school dropouts, to college grads, newly minted lawyers and MBAs across the developed world from Britain to Japan. One indication: In the U.S., the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds climbed to more than 18%, from 13% a year ago.

For people just starting their careers, the damage may be deep, long-lasting, potentially creating a kind of "lost generation." Studies suggest that an extended period of youthful joblessness can significantly depress lifetime income as people get stuck in jobs that are beneath their capabilities, or come to be seen by employers as damaged goods.

Equally important, employers are likely to suffer from the scarring of a generation. The freshness and vitality young people bring to the workplace is missing. Tomorrow's would-be star employees are on sidelines, deprived of experience and losing motivation. In Japan, which has been down this road since the early 1990s, workers who started their careers a decade or more ago and are now in their 30s account for 6 in 10 reported cases of depression, stress, work-related mental disabilities, according to Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development.

When today's unemployed finally do get jobs in the recovery, many may be dissatisfied to be slotted below people who worked all along—especially if the newcomers spent their downtime getting more education, says Richard Thompson, vice-president for talent development at Adecco Group North America, which employs more than 300,000 people in temporary positions. Says Thompson: "You're going to have multiple generations fighting for the jobs that are going to come back in the recovery."

(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bhoeconomy; generationy; globaleconomy; jobless; jobs; obamasfault; unemployment; youth
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To: AGreatPer
If you really want to work, and are willing to eat beans for awhile, America is still the land of opportunity. We have entirely too many swee'pea babies who think they are entitled to a cushy job fresh out of college.
141 posted on 10/10/2009 8:59:33 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (Truth--The liberal's Kryptonite)
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To: SeekAndFind
Did he go to college after high school ? If so, what did he major in ? Did he actually had formal training in locksmithing, or is going to learn on the job ?

You still don't get it. None of that crap has anything to do with success. Take a lesson from Woodie Allen: "90% of success in life is showing up."

142 posted on 10/10/2009 9:02:54 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (Truth--The liberal's Kryptonite)
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To: ican'tbelieveit
Did your son consider the military? If not why not?
143 posted on 10/10/2009 9:05:01 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (Truth--The liberal's Kryptonite)
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To: ican'tbelieveit

Did people in the Depression piss and whine about there being no jobs where they were? Yes, some of them.

Many of them got up and went where the jobs were, however.

These kids need to get up off their plush posteriors, put one foot in front of the other and get while the going is good.


144 posted on 10/10/2009 9:05:29 PM PDT by NVDave
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To: NVDave
Yup. Hop a freight to somewhere else.


145 posted on 10/10/2009 9:11:04 PM PDT by SnuffaBolshevik
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To: hinckley buzzard

He is disabled. Not military quality.


146 posted on 10/10/2009 9:18:34 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: MrPiper
Did I say I did not get paid?

No, but it was implied. And, a 16 year old today on a construction site would be a big problem for his employer.

I applaud your initiative, but the real world of today would be a different scenario.

147 posted on 10/10/2009 9:21:02 PM PDT by buccaneer81 (ECOMCON)
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To: NVDave

I know you have never faced adversity in life. Good for you.


148 posted on 10/10/2009 9:28:45 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: ican'tbelieveit

Yea, right. All those years of poaching small game as a kid so we could have food on the table was just sport hunting without paperwork. Nothin’ to it.

Lack of money as a youth is what made me into a money-making sled dog in life. People who say it “is hard” get nothing no sympathy from me. Been there, done that, didn’t get any sympathy from other people at the time.

Looking back, I’d do it all again, hardship and all. Without the tough times as a kid, I have no doubt I would never have been as successful. Whenever I thought “Hey, I could kick back and slack off... things are pretty good right here...” all I had to remember was the times we didn’t know if my mother was going to lose the house to the bank, how we’d pay for groceries and so on.

Best motivation in the world: remember what it was like to not have much at all.

Kids today are spoiled like they’ve never been before. Same advice given to me as a youth applies to them: “quityerbitchin’ and get to work.”


149 posted on 10/10/2009 9:35:43 PM PDT by NVDave
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To: FreeSouthernAmerican
Sounds like my horrible time with mathematics. Just could never get the hang of it.

Was tossed in the ‘ special ed ‘ classes for math which was a huge joke. One year I insisted on taking a regular Algebra class like everyone else, convinced myself I could do it. Even this class was dumbed down a bit and I still was on the verge of failing almost every semester no matter how hard I tried.

I learned nothing in those damned special ed classes though.

150 posted on 10/10/2009 9:37:46 PM PDT by warsaw44
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To: NVDave

Well, good for you. Glad you can do it all on your own.


151 posted on 10/10/2009 9:44:08 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team# 36120), KW:Folding)
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To: NVDave
Kids today are spoiled like they’ve never been before. Same advice given to me as a youth applies to them: “quityerbitchin’ and get to work.”

So true. For whatever reason, I took the blue collar route.

Didn't have that 100K college loan and kept my snoot to the grindstone. Now that I'm about done, I have little sympathy for the boo-hooers.

As an old man at work told me when I was starting out-"I got mine, you got yours to git!"

152 posted on 10/10/2009 9:49:08 PM PDT by SnuffaBolshevik
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To: rbg81

My son graduated engineering in 2007 and has just been spinning his wheels, my daughter graduated in 2005 with math and economics and after a year and a half found a job in Canada. That door was only open to her because my wife was born in Montreal and maintained dual citizenship just for the hell of it.

Over the last year my son has obliterated our frequent flyer miles traveling to interviews anywhere he can get them. He too is now looking in Canada.

My children are economic refugees,


153 posted on 10/10/2009 10:00:22 PM PDT by WalterSobchak2012
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To: TR Jeffersonian

ping


154 posted on 10/10/2009 10:01:30 PM PDT by kalee (01/20/13 The end of an error.... Obama even worse than Carter.)
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To: hinckley buzzard
Zero is no boomer. He makes the demographic cut by a year or two but he is definitely a member of the Slacker generation.

I guess we both have to back up a bit and stipulate to the fact that he is generationally in a condition beyond categories, that "X'er" and "War Baby" are terms that apply to Americans who are participants in their society.

A Red Diaper baby, Zero was educated as an enemy alien to emulate and esteem, from afar, his Mau-Mau daddy and the Communist International. He has always been an exotic, and he played on that in his presidential campaign. So saying he was a "Boomer" or an "X'er" makes about as much sense as trying to apply those terms to migrating Lapplanders or to Australian aborigines who've spent their whole lives going walkabout in the bush.

155 posted on 10/11/2009 12:43:54 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: WalterSobchak2012

What about graduate school? Does college alone not matter anymore without grad school or is grad school just a waste of time?


156 posted on 10/11/2009 3:19:47 AM PDT by Boardwalk
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To: OldPossum

Concur—see my post #49. I know my initial post probably came off sounding a little arrogant. However, the point I was trying to make is that most of these kids KNOW what majors will yield good paying jobs and which are more risky in terms of earning a living. As some have pointed out, having a technical degree does not guarantee a job, but overall the odds are more in your favor. Many of those with liberal arts degrees have skills that will eventually allow them to earn good $$. It just takes longer for them to build up to it.

Truth in advertising—I am a college professor (Computer Science). I see numerous students who start off in CS and then migrate to other majors because they’re easier. Most of these kids could stick it out if they pushed themselves—they just don’t want to do the hard work required. You would not believe the number of kids who major in Special Education because they believe its an “easy” job.


157 posted on 10/11/2009 5:45:29 AM PDT by rbg81 (DRAIN THE SWAMP!!)
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To: WalterSobchak2012

Sorry to hear that. I still think the odds of getting a job with a technical degree are better than one with a liberal arts degree. Your son’s experience nonwithstanding, I think the BLS stats back me up on this. In the end there are no guarantees of anything, only odds in/out of your favor.

Best of luck to your son.


158 posted on 10/11/2009 5:49:12 AM PDT by rbg81 (DRAIN THE SWAMP!!)
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To: SeekAndFind
Affected are a range of young people, from high school dropouts, to college grads, newly minted lawyers and MBAs across the developed world from Britain to Japan. One indication: In the U.S., the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds climbed to more than 18%, from 13% a year ago.

09/01/1997 $5.15
07/24/2007 $5.85
07/24/2008 $6.55
07/24/2009 $7.25

159 posted on 10/11/2009 6:13:57 AM PDT by mvpel (Michael Pelletier)
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To: MrPiper

I took one semester of HVAC a long time ago but every now and then I am able to apply some of it here at home. HVAC in the south is a necessity. I am so burned out on computers and other technology I am looking to do something else. If the budget can survive this year, maybe I can afford to go to tech. college.


160 posted on 10/11/2009 6:41:46 AM PDT by wally_bert (It's sheer elegance in its simplicity! - The Middleman)
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