A Jobless Generation

As a kid, I can remember my grandmother telling me stories of how people coped through the Great Depression. I now suspect that living through that era altered her life path mentally. Of course it all seemed foreign to me and the thought of experiencing anything remotely like it in my lifetime appeared more fictional than possible. After all, we’ve prospered as a nation; women’s lib had prevailed and technology was progressing. I was young and I had naive notions that my life would have fewer struggles than generations before me.

My generation, Gen X, has been rather removed from an extreme economic downturn like the one we are experiencing now. We’re older, in the midst of our careers and many of us are raising our own families. This is new to us and many don’t even know what to make of it.

Unemployment plays a large role, not just in terms of financial survival, but the havoc it wreaks on the psyche of those unable to land a job or those who are unemployed.

It’s easy for me to say, as a parent, that in the year 2018 when my own daughter embarks on a career things will be better. But according to Don Peck in the Atlantic, 10 million new jobs would need to be created just to bring the unemployment rate down to 5 percent today. “Even if the economy were to immediately begin producing 600,000 jobs a month—more than double the pace of the mid-to-late 1990s, when job growth was strong—it would take roughly two years to dig ourselves out of the hole we’re in.” Peck writes.

Youth unemployment today remains high. It’s estimated that only 17 out of 100 teens are gainfully employed. Employment means far more than a earning a paycheck and having pocket cash. According to experts, the state of the economy and the time line when young people enter the workforce have lasting impacts, positive or negative, on professional mobility and attainment. A college degree is no longer an employment guarantee.

Many of us already know that the Gen Y generation (our kids) are different than generations before. They tend to be more micro-managed in their activities and need constant direction to complete tasks. They also tend to be less entrepreneurial than their forefathers. Couple this with gaining necessary skills later in life will have a profound affect not only in their careers, but in their personal lives as well. Those with a sense of self-entitlement will have the rudest awakening when reality sets in.

Jobs don’t just appear out of thin air. They’re created by existing companies and new firms. They’re created through the innovation of new products and through people who have learned to think outside of the box, can take a risk and start something new. Those who wait for opportunity to land at their doorstep will likely find an empty stoop.