The Youth Unemployment Bomb
businessweek.com
The Youth Unemployment Bomb
1–10 of 163 posts
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#2I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day".
I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new normal for him has become that he works 15 minutes a day or less on his job search. (Relatedly: some days I wonder if the single most effective form of unemployment relief would be teaching people that sending out resumes is for suckers.)
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#3I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day". I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new nor…
(Relatedly: some days I wonder if the single most effective form of unemployment relief would be teaching people that sending out resumes is for suckers.)
The welfare-reform efforts of the past 15-20 years in most western countries have tended to do exactly the opposite, oddly enough. Out of a worry that people were just receiving benefits without really looking for work, you must now demonstrate that you're actively sending out resumes and filling out applications. Some jurisdictions even require you to show up every so often to a center where they help you search job listings and send out resumes.
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#4I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day". I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new nor…
I think the bigger picture is that at least in the US, most of these people will never get middle class jobs because they just aren't smart enough to really contribute anything.
If unemployment among youths is around 50% or whatever today, then just imagine what it will be in ten years when gas is $8 per gallon and we're facing food shortages. There is simply no way this is going to solve itself without massive government intervention, and I have trouble seeing that happening considering that there has been basically zero progress made by the federal government since I've been alive.
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#5Luckily the soil is fertile: All over the world, the hittistes and shabab atileen, NEETs and freeters and boomerang kids are hungry for a chance to thrive.
Hmm, but how hungry? Compared to say people who came of age in the 40s or 50s? I'm not sure hungry is the right word. Restless maybe. Peckish.
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#6Luckily the soil is fertile: All over the world, the hittistes and shabab atileen, NEETs and freeters and boomerang kids are hungry for a chance to thrive. Hmm, but how hungry? Compared to say people who came of age in the 40s or 50s? I'm not sure hungry is the right word. Restless maybe. Peckish.
Do you have anything substantial behind this or is it just general "worst generation ever" talk?
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#7I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day". I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new nor…
I've been very careful to craft my resume for the job applied for and to only apply for those where I have a shot.
1 interview out of 3 resumes seems like a good rate. I've only sent three, but that's because I realized the economy wasn't getting better any time soon.
"Ran an advice blog" definitely looks better on my resume than "got really good at writing resumes."
I'll start sending them out again once unemployment drops a couple percentage points, but I've made more money from this blog than I would have lost driving around asking for jobs (which is a double digit number, but still meaningful).
I mentioned this here some months ago in a similar thread, and I'm only more sure of the value in doing this now. :)
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#8I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day". I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new nor…
there aren't that many new jobs added to all the jobs sites every day, so if you limit yourself just to sending resumes within the closest 100 miles, 15 minutes a day can be as much as you can actually spend.
and yes sending resumes isn't as productive as having connections, but a lot of people just don't have that many connections that they can tap to get them a job
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#9> But the failure to launch has serious consequences for society—as Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's overthrown President, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, discovered.
Mmm, what? Don't make it sound like overturning dictators is a bad thing, dude.
Maybe it's much better for "society" to have unemployed young people with not only the courage to fight for freedom but also nothing better to do with their time, than to have people with jobs who tolerate authoritarianism.
Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb
#10I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day". I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new nor…
(Relatedly: some days I wonder if the single most effective form of unemployment relief would be teaching people that sending out resumes is for suckers.) The welfare-reform efforts of the past 15-20 years in most western countries have tended to do exactly the opposite, oddly enough. Out of a worry that people were just receiving benefits without really looking for work, you must now demonstrate that you're actively…
John Maynard Keynes did suggest welfare should be employing people to do things, even pointless things like building giant structures and them demolishing them again.
It seems silly, but if we truly recognize that long term unemployment has a horrible way of killing one's ability hold a job, then Keynes idea is rather practical.
The government not as welfare but simply as employers of last resort. Much like the Fed is the lender of last resort.
Obviously this has the danger of government employees lobbying for ever better pay until it is economically irrational for people to seek work in the private sector.