Picked up on this story as my kids are in this age bracket as are a large number of our cadets and young staff.
Has anyone got young staff and maybe cadets who fit the story.
an interesting article, and an eye opener to the opportunities my parents enjoyed the challenges ahead!
I have a friend who completed a 3-year degree in forensics, with a view to joining the police and then specialising, said friend is currently stuck a few years later working in a supermarket. It makes me glad I never went to uni, those that do work hard and don’t waste their time there seem to be getting penalised.
On the flip side, I have an ex-gf from many years ago who believed every job was beneath her, she complained about being out of work, but wasn’t prepared to take what she could get, and for saying she was hardly qualified (a handful of mediocre GCSEs and a child care course) that wasn’t much, nor was she prepared to get out of bed in the morning to even look for a job. Needless to say the relationship could not last! Said ex-gf managed to land a job eventually for around 6 months before getting pregnant and now stands to earn more than a lot of young people can through benefits, having barely worked for anything in her life :mad: two words…oxygen thief!
It goes to show there are two sides to every story, there are those that are genuinely struggling, that have worked hard, had visions for the future and have just simply been blocked, these I have the deepest sympathy for. However, there are those in the statistics that can’t be bothered to work, or realise they’re better off living off the welfare state, these I would quite happily see thrown out into the channel.
i was made redundant in late 2009 from a prodcution engineer role
knowing i would need money i went striaght to the local temp office which always found me work during my university summer holidays and had a job by the time i had walked back to the car after re-registering
After Christmas i then started looking for a “real” (Engineering) job suitable to my degree qualifications and landed a warehouse job picking and packing when the summer months came round paying more than the temp agency
it took me 6 months and interviews with 7 different companies, but i found a job relevant to my qualifications but i was working throughout, yes it was menial work, sorting Christmas post and picking and packing orders…but i sucked it up and got on with it
i could rant until i turn blue in the face and fall over when “the youth of today” claim there are no jobs out there…the forensic/supermarket example above is another example, there are jobs, the trouble being people are too proud to do them, yet happy enough to be a “bum” and seen as a “victim” on benefits
edit: as a victim = it is not their fault and is far less effort than doing the obvious.
as a ex Job Centre Plus “regular” it is pointless looking there for jobs (which could explain the “youths” opinions), it is best to look on Gumtree, in the local papers, or approach an agency
Don’t really disagree with the thrust of your argument, BUT…
At the moment, there are jobs if you have NO experience: You can work part time or straight out of education as a waiter, in a warehouse, stacking shelves, whatever.
There are also jobs if you have very specific experience and qualifications: nurses, engineers, HGV drivers. Competition for those jobs is fierce.
However, if you have a few years work experience (especially with management) and some reasonable qualifications you can watch your employment options shrink to almost nothing. The options you do get will have literally hundreds of applicants.
I’ve been there. Couldn’t get an ‘unskilled’ job at a supermarket or in a warehouse or a garage or a hotel, because I was considered ‘overqualified for this role’, but didn’t have any very specific skills to apply to a niche job: not a qualified CAD engineer for example.
It’s no good applying for jobs when it’s the potential employer who is telling you “This job is beneath you.”
tango_lima agree with what you’re saying, seen the situation with guys getting their CPL/IR then being unable to find that initial boost into the airline industry with instructing jobs becoming harder to come buy and smaller commercial jobs like bush flying becoming more competitive. The guys who are unlucky enough not to get in begin to look elsewhere in the meantime and find their options very limited, employers seem reluctant to take these on because they know at the first sniff of a job in aviation you’re going to jump ship. Would be nice to see more companies doing something about it though, Jet2’s apprenticeship scheme for example, work 18 months for jet2 as ground staff and they’ll reward your loyalty by bonding you through a 737 type-rating, not the perfect solution as its hard to keep your hand in with the flying, but a step in the right direction.
You could however argue it will begin to swing the other way, with inexperience working in an applicants favour. Sorry to use yet another aviation related example, but its already becoming visible in certain airlines, Ryanair for example have realised the potential to save and even make money out of the situation. They take fresh-out of training pilots, make money by making them pay over the odds for their type-rating and save by having someone who will work for less in the RH seat. These pilots are then building relevant experience in order to progress in the industry and in a few years will be prepared to move on to bigger and better things.
[quote=“tango_lima” post=4126][quote=“steve679” post=4105]
i could rant until i turn blue in the face and fall over when “the youth of today” claim there are no jobs out there…the forensic/supermarket example above is another example, there are jobs, the trouble being people are too proud to do them, yet happy enough to be a “bum” and seen as a “victim” on benefits
[/quote]
Don’t really disagree with the thrust of your argument, BUT…
At the moment, there are jobs if you have NO experience: You can work part time or straight out of education as a waiter, in a warehouse, stacking shelves, whatever.
There are also jobs if you have very specific experience and qualifications: nurses, engineers, HGV drivers. Competition for those jobs is fierce.
However, if you have a few years work experience (especially with management) and some reasonable qualifications you can watch your employment options shrink to almost nothing. The options you do get will have literally hundreds of applicants.
I’ve been there. Couldn’t get an ‘unskilled’ job at a supermarket or in a warehouse or a garage or a hotel, because I was considered ‘overqualified for this role’, but didn’t have any very specific skills to apply to a niche job: not a qualified CAD engineer for example.
It’s no good applying for jobs when it’s the potential employer who is telling you “This job is beneath you.”[/quote]
i’m not disagreeing, but being over qualified (BEng Mechanical Engineering plus 3 years experience, with CAD, Production and R&D) didnt stop me finding a job.
i could have entered that office with no more than 2 GSCEs to rub together or be have a PhD providing you accept you need a job then my local office have always found it for me
yes it was only through a temping agency, but they dont care what quals i had, just that i could earn them money (my contact earnt £5/hr every hour i worked and so was in his interest that i was working)
£6.50/hr and 40-60hrs a week isnt going to offer a great lifestyle but it paid the bills and kept my head above the water for those 6 monhts while i did find work.
i am not saying that there are jobs out there in every industry or that match every qualification. but i do know there are jobs out there as i found one, easily and it annoyes me when i hear kids moan they cant find a job and are stuck on benefits when i can walk into the local tempting agency and have a job by the time i get back to my car!
working at the agency was great for both parties. i didnt want to commit to a job and training i was over qualified for and not of any personal interest, while they had someone who was realiable, with transport, who they could send anywhere (and often did) from warehouse work, drivers mates (multidrop delivery anywhere between Bristol and London) and removals.
Having had to bring my own kids expectations down to a realistic level, I personally feel that whoever feeds youngsters the lie that they need to have or are entitled to things just because their parents and or grandparents have them now is doing them a huge disservice. My middle and eldest have got their own flats and we enjoyed the comments when they got their first bills and did their first food shop.
My mum and dad and my in-laws all lived with one or other their parents when they got married and then worked bloody hard scrimping and saving along the years to get what they have now. My parents had to get my uncle and grandad to stand as guarantors for loans and hire purchase agreements, I know as I’ve seen them. If you wanted a loan you also had to meet with your bank manager (not someone called a personal banker) and it was his decision alone if you were allowed the loan. Something that I think should be introduced again rather than the bloody ridiculous instantaneous loan/credit system we have now. I’ve refused to take imposed increases of my credit card limit, it’s at £2500 and I can’t think why I would want the £4000 they have tried to put it up to. It’s not been on for a while but I sat agog watching the Alvin Hall programme, where people IMO too stupid to be allowed to breath, accrued debt of tens of thousands of pounds via loans and credit cards and then bleated that they were in financial strife, no sh$t sherlock. The best bit was they had didn’t really have anything of worth to show for it.
I also remember the I want it and want it now culture that developed in the 80s and 90s and I think that this has fed the mindset of youngsters who are referred to in this article, who have probably been brought up in houses where there was irrational spending on things for the sake of it. Now they are older and can’t live like this
I some respects the current downturn might do us a favour as a society, in that if people’s expectations are lowered, when things do pick up we might enter a more penny-watching phase with people buying what they need and only when they need it and we may see an end to blatant consumerism as it just doesn’t work.
There are jobs - if you are prepared to swallow your pride and take whatever comes along. The experience of my daughter shows that. We do get the moans that ‘I don’t like my job’ etc, but she likes the money.
I’m not convinced that good role models are provided by the media for our youngsters, in terms of what to expect out of life.
Having been a teenager in the austere (3 day week etc 1970s) was good training to make ‘one pound do the work of two’, as they say in Yorkshire.
[quote=“mike-foxtrot-lima” post=4365]I’m not convinced that good role models are provided by the media for our youngsters, in terms of what to expect out of life.
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Frankly I don’t think that any aspect of the media promote a particularly good way of life for youngsters and are the root cause of the problem. If the govt and media actively pushed a “live within your means” message, we might not be where we are now.
What gets me is that when I left education in the early 80s, I was part of what they would have called in modern parlance a lost generation, high unemployment, job prospects not good and so on. But 30 years on and through accepting that life’s not a bowl of strawberries and you have to make sacrifices in terms of immediate personal wants in order to achieve things in the longer term, I don’t think we’ve (personally) got a particularly bad life. This is what we’ve tried to instill in our kids and hopefully they’ve listened and will adopt a similar philsophy. I’ve got mates who are hocked up to the hilt and have been like that for years and years, because they want it all, but can’t really afford it.
How many of the so called lost generation of today (rest assured there will be another one in a few years) will look back in 20/30 years and think it’s been tough at times but we’ve done OK?