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 ...
Oh, it’s a lot longer than 20 years. Have you read John Taylor Gatto’s book? The Underground History of American Education? I think that’s what it’s called. I lent my copy out and can’t remember the exact title any more. I was a teacher for 7 years, my parents were both teachers, and that book rings true.
Note that it was Baby Boomers who added more recipients to SSI.
Look at where the wealth is now: it is in the hands of the Boomers -- who earned it.
LOL!
Throwing the public deeper into debt and pointing to wealth held in private hands is exactly the point.
It's like a kid running up his parents' credit card bills but then pointing to the cash in his wallet as wealth...except the Baby Boomers have run up the credit card of their children and grandchildren.
If you have a solid career plan and get specialized training while in college, you can make a good living with an English degree, even outside teaching. I know a few people who’ve done so. I know others who just took general English classes, didn’t want to teach and didn’t get any other training, and they probably could still have the jobs they have even if they hadn’t gotten any degree at all.
Who would be calling? One of my many former co-worker Chemical Engineers who were recently laid off and are finding it difficult to get a new position?
Make no mistake - Obama's economy is the the reason this guy has no job.
Engineering math is work, it isn’t hard. If someone said he should be a mathematician then your point would be stronger. That would require aptitude. Dan should also have figured out that the market for english professors is small and that if he doesn’t fit an affirmative action category he probably won’t get a job even if he is the best candidate in the job search. The bottom line is that most people who major in english today do it because it is easy, and it allows someone to say he has gone to college even though he really should have pursued a trade.
My sis-in-law graduated with a BS in engineering, magna cum laude.
She’s had one interview since April. And she has work experience. It is tough out there.
Oh and in my sis-in-laws cohort of 50 students, only 1 got a job offer after graduation. One. She and two others were the only ones she knows who went on interviews. Some of her friends have entered nursing school. A BS in engineering and they can’t even get a sniff at a job.
She speaks 5 languages (English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and German) and her interview (last week) was with a Taiwanese engineering firm which required Mandarin. She is still waiting to hear back about a 2nd interview.
So is this how you spend your time, leaving anonymous smart ass comments from the safety of your keyboard and anonymity?
Get a clue.
No if the economy had not of collapsed we would not have Obama now. McCain led between 3 and 5 points depending on the poll for weeks until the economy collapsed. He could have been Reagan and Goldwater combined and he still would have lost.
Hmmm....I teach university level computer science. While we have seen that it taking students longer to get jobs, they are still getting them. In fact, one of our Spring grads just emailed me the other day that he got a programming job in Beverly Hills, CA. I guess even CA has jobs.
M.I.T. had 1851 undergraduate (despite the fact that MIT students do not enroll in an academic department until the start of their sophomore year) and 2807 graduate students enrolled in engineering for the 2008-09 academic year.
His book is available online. The Underground History of American Education
That is the whole point. To discourage young people so that they NEVER believe in themselves and who think that their only hope is to let government take care of them. It’s working just the way the Socialists planned.
Obama is Gen X born before ‘70.
Yeah, I had to correct myself...
I think your line is, "Better put some ice on that."
It’s easy to talk of ‘what might have been’.
What actually happened, though, is reality.
McCain offered only an pale imitation of Obama’s platform... and thought that would get him elected. Not ever realizing that for those that believe in self-reliance/personal responsibility, the choice between total government dependance and just a little bit less than total government dependance is a false choice. So they didn’t vote.
Which allowed for the demographics to be skewed.
Had he *ACTUALLY* offered a difference, more would have turned out to vote. Which would have offered him the possibility of victory.
You seemed to have missed that you typed "illegal" twice.
"Illegal" means that there's lower chance of that worker going to authorities or filing a lawsuit. But put a 16-year-old citizen at a construction site like that, it might be legal, but raises insurance rates--especially since any accident will be reported.
I’m not sure I believe that anymore, although that is exactly what I was telling my own kids for years. At least with a degree in queer studies you probably won’t be accused of being over qualified for much. While my son insisting he wanted to work at the Apple Store was a little bit of a tough sell.
He is a smart kid and I am sure he will be successful - I just fear it won’t be in this country.
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