Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Youth Unemployment Bomb

businessweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 163 posts

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#41

Post by rst »

bioh42_2 wrote: post #10
_delirium wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 i…

How about putting back together giant structures that are falling apart? Our infrastructure is rotting away --- that Minneapolis bridge collapse in 2007 was a bit of a wake-up call. There's no shortage of stuff in the United States that needs to get fixed.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#42

Post by loewenskind »

mkr-hn wrote: post #27
patio11 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not applying for work because the unemployment rate is high is mind bending to me. Can you explain your reasoning? This sounds like it is full-stop guaranteed to mean several hundred thousand people get jobs before you get considered. I like the blog idea more than playing xBox but the commitment strategy here strikes me as severly suboptimal. (You may wish to recalibrate your understanding of meaningful: delaying yo…

I spent a year after college looking for jobs to apply to. I found three I was remotely qualified for (those I applied to). If I applied for even a small portion of the jobs that pop up on local job boards, it would consume every hour of the day. In a normal economy you'd see entry level jobs there. But every job wants years of experience and specialized certifications. I don't even have the means to get the certific…

Companies always ask for more than they need, just as candidates often claim more experience than they actually have. Don't be intimidated by what they say they want.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#43

Post by ylem »

patio11 wrote: post #24
mkr-hn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unemploymen…

Not applying for work because the unemployment rate is high is mind bending to me. Can you explain your reasoning? This sounds like it is full-stop guaranteed to mean several hundred thousand people get jobs before you get considered. I like the blog idea more than playing xBox but the commitment strategy here strikes me as severly suboptimal. (You may wish to recalibrate your understanding of meaningful: delaying yo…

1) I think if you're unemployed, I think the OP is correct in saying that it's better to have something on your resume, than a large gap where you were applying for jobs 2) Some people are able to transition. I had a cousin who used to work at a factory. They downsized and he started flipping houses. He saw the market drying up (in Michigan, so he didn't get rich off of it) and went back to school and now is doing Flash design. But, on the other hand, I have cousins who used to work in the auto industry (suppliers) and got laid off. One took advantage of retraining is now doing medical coding, but as she told me, it's hard to switch after spending 18 years working on the line at a factory. One cousin hasn't been able to make the switch and moves from temp job to temp job. Others have looked for work, and with their skill set, the jobs just aren't there...

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#44

Post by [deleted] »

kevindication wrote: post #39
mkr-hn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a year after college looking for jobs to apply to. I found three I was remotely qualified for (those I applied to). If I applied for even a small portion of the jobs that pop up on local job boards, it would consume every hour of the day. In a normal economy you'd see entry level jobs there. But every job wants years of experience and specialized certifications. I don't even have the means to get the certific…

One piece of advice: don't let the job ad make you think you're unqualified and stop you from applying. Employers often a) don't know what they want/need b) throw everything they can think of in that ad. It may be a challenge to get past the naive recruiter without all of the skills mentioned on your resume, but it can be worth it because the interview will bear out whether you'll actually be useful to the hiring man…

[deleted]

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#45

Post by ylem »

patio11 wrote: post #16
vaksel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So make connections. People with day jobs manage to do this, too: imagine how easy it is with lots of free time.

I think it's a question of what comes out of making these connections. For example, there are formal "networking" events. However, what are the statistics of job offers that come from these?

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#46

Post by Tycho »

jhamburger wrote: post #40
Tycho wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, even my mother, who came of age in the 70s, shared a small home with 8 other siblings and two very over-stressed parents (who would have had things even harder). She was literally desperate to leave and start living much more comfortably (ie. independently). Nowadays kids come from much smaller families, and have numerous cheap distractions/entertainments like the internet, cellphones, tv, games. Living indepen…

If people were really comfortable spending the early stage of their adult life with Xbox and mom's cooking, they could have skipped going $100,000 in debt for six years of post-high school education that your mother's generation couldn't be bothered with.

That perhaps makes sense where you live, but in my country going to university is free and is simply the done thing. Having vague long term goals for your life is one thing, having practical concerns forcing you into action vs. letting you laze around and enjoy pastimes, is another.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#47

Post by pzxc »

ylem wrote: post #31
_delirium wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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…

I have a sister who is unemployed in California (Pasadena), so I will make a few anecdotal observations. She was an honors student in college and taught special ed for some years before moving on to manage some group homes for the mentally impaired. She then went into home health care and became unemployed when a job offer fell through. During this time (over 1 year), she has applied for many jobs (including an inter…

I've never understood how being "overqualified" is a problem. No one says you have to list your degree or make mention of it. Just pretend you don't have one? What am I missing here? Are people too egotistical to accept a job at McDonald's when they have a degree? It has always been my opinion that any job is better than no job. If you need money, take what work you can. There's nothing that says you can't keep looking for a better job while you are working a holdover job. And, just like omitting mention of the degree, when you do apply for jobs that you really want, now or later, you don't have to put on your resume that you worked at McDonald's for three months while you were looking for better work.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#49

Post by rst »

One key bit: "more education is not always better. What matters is matching the skills of the workforce to the skills that employers demand. In Iran, where the percentage of people aged 15 and over with postsecondary degrees has soared from 2.5 percent to 10.5 percent over the past 20 years, the education system has become 'a giant diploma mill,' says Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economist at Virginia Tech."

The same is true here, as many of our chronically "overqualified" unemployed could attest. What's worse, some of what counts as "training" here is a set of dubious commercial vocational schools --- cosmetology schools, and the like --- which soak up student loans, and leave the trainees with large debts that are hard to dismiss, even in bankruptcy.

(And these are pretty big business. One of them, Kaplan, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Washington Post corporation that has over $2 billion in revenue, accounts for just about all of the parent corporation's profits. Not without controversy by the way; reports of abusive practices from Kaplan have led to allegations of fraud: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/education/10kaplan.html The Washington Post, of course, has editorialized in favor of its baby.)

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#50

Post by ylem »

wisty wrote: post #12

I've spoken to a few Chinese about this, where manual workers get more than uni grads (though not as much as successful business owners). Chinese really value education (in the high culture sense), and education (in the sense of meaningless test scores), money, and status. Until a few years ago, degrees were a ticket to riches. Now, they just mean you are overqualified for higher-paying jobs. Their feelings about it…

I think that you see this in places like Spain as well--you have a large educated, unemployed fraction of the population...
Post reply on HN