The Lost Generation (The continuing job crisis is damaging the future of our young people)

Business Week ^ | 10/9/2009 | Peter Coy

[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."

[SeekAndFind]

More grim info from above article :

“Only 46% of people aged 16-24 had jobs in September, the lowest since the government began counting in 1948. The crisis is even hitting recent college graduates. “I’ve applied for a whole lot of restaurant jobs, but even those, nobody calls me back,” says Dan Schmitz, 25, a University of Wisconsin graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. “Every morning I wake up thinking today’s going to be the day I get a job. I’ve not had a job for months, and it’s getting really frustrating.”

[rbg81]

“I’ve applied for a whole lot of restaurant jobs, but even those, nobody calls me back,” says Dan Schmitz, 25, a University of Wisconsin graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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I’ll bet that Dan had a really good time in college. Maybe he would have a harder time, but a good paying job if he had majored in, say, Engineering instead of English?

[2ndDivisionVet]

My employees work out of their own homes ... the commute is to their home office. If someone has one years experience in mortgages or two years in (non-retail) sales, we will talk to them. There is opportunity out there. My late father told me that even in the depths of the depression successful salespeople had money.

[Regulator]

I’ve applied for a whole lot of restaurant jobs

He doesn't speak Spanish and the existing help makes sure only their co-ethnics get hired

He should file a discrimination suit against every one of the places he applied

[freedumb2003]

I really do feel sorry for this generation.

It is a bizarre combination of helicopter-parent led “I’m special” arrogance and yet not being trained for useful careers that has landed them in forceps not of their making.

The liberals have run the education henhouse for the last 20 years. Their seeds have sprouted at last.

I wish I had an immediate solution, but that is like looking for a magic pill for a long-developing cancer.

If we don’t rip the whole education system out from its intransigent liberal roots — from K-12 through Grad and Post-Grad, this will be the lot for our children’s children’s children.

[Vision Thing]

Ernest Hemingway quickly followed up Gertrude Stein’s ‘lost generation’ quote with this one from Ecclesiates: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.”

Looks like it’s time to bury Gen Y and the obama generation. Next!

[rabscuttle385]

*Ping!*

[FreeSouthernAmerican]

“Engineering instead of English?”

Just in defense of the guy, not all of us understand that stuff. You would not imagine how much effort I put into understanding it and I just did not get it. I barely got through college algebra. There is no way I would have gotten through calculus or any other thing like that. For all you know the guy made a 4.0 in his field.

[Regulator]

Engineering instead of English?

Maybe. Or maybe the Indian hiring manager at Intel would politely say, "oh my goodness no, we have no jobs here"...and then think to himself, "...unless of course you went to IIT Madras"

Lotsa that in the Silicon Slum

[I see my hands]

[FreeSouthernAmerican]

Not all of us.

[rabscuttle385]

Here's the problem right here:

It seems strange at first blush that young people are the biggest victims of the current economic slump. One could easily imagine that companies in a recession would prefer to hire young people, who are cheap, and slough off older workers, who are expensive. But both employers and older workers are sitting tight, taking as few risks as possible in an uncertain environment. With no openings, employers are refusing even to look at the résumés of those on the outside looking in.

Let me be very blunt here: the increased economic "uncertainty" is the fault of the Government, both parties included.

The Government *is* the systemic risk now.

[Pearls Before Swine]

I’ll bet that Dan had a really good time in college. Maybe he would have a harder time, but a good paying job if he had majored in, say, Engineering instead of English?

Maybe, but times are tough. I have a kid who graduated from there with a degree in meteorology recently, and he's still looking. And, I can tell you from experience, the demand for entry-level engineers is quite sensitive to the state of the economy.

[I see my hands]

It's a legitimate generalization.

[rabscuttle385]

Generation Stupid...as opposed to the Baby Boomers who spent like drunken sailors for decades and now expect my generation to clean up their messes *and* pay for their retirement?

[Sparko]

Undoubtedly, the majority of those of voting age in this under-employed group voted for that Hope and Change stuff.

I doubt they will be soured in 2010 to vote against Dems, but there’s always that chance.

[I see my hands]

You're tossing in a lot of dross but basically: yes.

[Boardwalk]

Regarding the older workers, 0bama plans to get rid of over 40 age discrimination in the workplace so goodbye old white people and hello young college grads.