Youth Unemployment

[mainemike]

I certainly do. I'd say I know at least ten people who were good enough to get hired by large legal and architectural firms 5-10 years ago but are now without work because the work dried up. Yes, I know some will say that lawyers, architects, and anyone else that doesn't do "real" work is a degenerate deserving of unemployment, but that's not how I see it. These guys have real skills, the market just isn't there for them anymore. I know your post is partly tongue-in-cheek, but I don't think it's an accurate representation of the country. There are lots of people out there who have done pretty much everything right and now find themselves hanging out in the cold.

agreed/understood.yer/i'm talking about young folks whom, while they are looking for a job, can work. there is dignity in any labor and i'm not preachin, but work is good for anybody and if these folks are able bodied, they could benefit from busting their humps and/or serving others. which to me means: labor by day and bartending at night, or similar iterations thereof. i'm glad you went to college, good luck w/yer future, have you used a chainsaw before ?

[shanerpvt]

That presumes that the unemployed have a fairly flexible skillset, which isn't always the case. I have a friend who's an experimental physicist - smashing atoms together and stuff. There are lots of unemployed people in his field because research money has dried up, labs have closed down, and universities aren't hiring. It's not like those guys can just flex over into an adjacent field, their skills are too specialized. Here they couldn't even teach physics in a public high school because they don't have teaching certification. I'm not convinced it's a lack of work ethic, rather I think it's often investing in a highly specialized skillset without a plan b. PhD's don't come with an escape hatch. There comes a point where the investment of time, money, and life into a set of skills just means for some people that plan a is the only reasonable plan.

while i respect your opinion, i don't agree. we must continue to grow.

all the best,
shaner

[Britishbane]

agreed/understood.yer/i'm talking about young folks whom, while they are looking for a job, can work. there is dignity in any labor and i'm not preachin, but work is good for anybody and if these folks are able bodied, they could benefit from busting their humps and/or serving others. which to me means: labor by day and bartending at night, or similar iterations thereof. i'm glad you went to college, good luck w/yer future, have you used a chainsaw before ?

This, mm, I can get behind. I've multiple friends collecting unemployment after their jobs were found unessessary. Annoys the he'll out of me that they've been watching ten ours a day of march madness collecting govt money. While myself and others I know chose not to go that route and bust our asses working multiple jobs. That said I agree with Caleb, there are lots of hard working capable individuals without jobs. I disagree with you on that point

[jscottyk]

Yet, if the reduction in existing employment is a reflection of a reduction in market demand, the situation is still pretty bad for entrepreneurs in the field that is contracting, no?

Sounds like you are assuming I said the potential entrepreneur keeps doing what they have been and hang a shingle in that market. That's a thought you didn't hear from me.

One of the first lessons for a successful entrepreneur is to learn to understand what the market wants and then create an offering for that. Observe, synthesize, adapt. Take what you know and adapt it to the situation at hand.

I'm not saying times are tough. They are very tough. The worst since the Great Depression. That said, which would you rather do, enter a market when it is near it's lowest (tons of upside) OR enter a market when it's at it's highest (tons of downside)? To put it a different way, when was a better time to start a new venture, January 2008 or January 2011?

That presumes that the unemployed have a fairly flexible skillset, which isn't always the case. I have a friend who's an experimental physicist - smashing atoms together and stuff. There are lots of unemployed people in his field because research money has dried up, labs have closed down, and universities aren't hiring. It's not like those guys can just flex over into an adjacent field, their skills are too specialized. Here they couldn't even teach physics in a public high school because they don't have teaching certification. I'm not convinced it's a lack of work ethic, rather I think it's often investing in a highly specialized skillset without a plan b. PhD's don't come with an escape hatch. There comes a point where the investment of time, money, and life into a set of skills just means for some people that plan a is the only reasonable plan.

Maybe, maybe not. The above, in my opinion, is an example of "the sunk cost fallacy".
Perhaps the above mentioned physicist made a mistake in selecting their career. The cold hard truth is nobody is to blame except the physicist. Observe, synthesize, adapt.

Why do we feel entitled to a good job because we graduated college, or are even Americans. The Americans who made this country great emigrated to these shores with no job waiting and no social safety net. The only thing they had was an opportunity to make a better life and compared to almost every country we still maintain that advantage. I dont mean to whitewash our problems, we have real problems, but I think there is still as much opportunity as there ever was if you're willing to go for it.

Bingo.

[caleb]

Sounds like you are assuming I said the potential entrepreneur keeps doing what they have been and hang a shingle in that market. That's a thought you didn't hear from me.

One of the first lessons for a successful entrepreneur is to learn to understand what the market wants and then create an offering for that. Observe, synthesize, adapt. Take what you know and adapt it to the situation at hand.

I'm not going to turn this into a bickering match, but my earlier point was that the physicist has very few transferable skills even though he is highly skilled within his field. Outside of that field he's sunk (in terms of obtaining comparable employment), which is true of most highly skilled people. If the market of the highest skilled gets too volatile we're going to find ourselves in a position where everyone "plays it safe" rather than taking risks by sinking huge sums into a new field of knowledge or skill. That, I think, will lead to a regressive society/culture in which we continue the status quo rather than taking risks.

The generic nature of an entrepreneur's skills are not at all the same as a highly skilled worker. An entrepreneur is skilled in the market. A worker is skilled in a field of work. What's happening to workers is that the terrain is shifting underneath their feet. An analogy for the entrepreneur would be if we did away with capitalism and the free market tomorrow. I imagine in that situation the entrepreneur would find himself in a similar position of disorientation to which today's worker finds himself.

[jscottyk]

I'm not going to turn this into a bickering match, but my earlier point was that the physicist has very few transferable skills even though he is highly skilled within his field. Outside of that field he's sunk (in terms of obtaining comparable employment), which is true of most highly skilled people. If the market of the highest skilled gets too volatile we're going to find ourselves in a position where everyone "plays it safe" rather than taking risks by sinking huge sums into a new field of knowledge or skill. That, I think, will lead to a regressive society/culture in which we continue the status quo rather than taking risks.

caleb, first off let me say I don't take single word you have written as bickering. Don't worry about that one bit.

Now, I think you are missing my point. If the situation is as bad as it seems for the physicist then he needs to stop doing that line of work regardless of how much time and effort he has spent to date. See my note of sunk cost. Maybe he doesn't want to be an entrepreneur (not all are cut from that cloth, thank the lord) but he still needs to observe, synthesize, and adapt.

...if we did away with capitalism and the free market tomorrow. What, then, would that entrepreneur do?

Observe, synthesize, and adapt.

[Britishbane]

agreed/understood.yer/i'm talking about young folks whom, while they are looking for a job, can work. there is dignity in any labor and i'm not preachin, but work is good for anybody and if these folks are able bodied, they could benefit from busting their humps and/or serving others. which to me means: labor by day and bartending at night, or similar iterations thereof. i'm glad you went to college, good luck w/yer future, have you used a chainsaw before ?

This, mm, I can get behind. I've multiple friends collecting unemployment after their jobs were found unessessary. Annoys the he'll out of me that they've been watching ten ours a day of march madness collecting govt money. While myself and others I know chose not to go that route and bust our asses working multiple jobs. That said I agree with Caleb, there are lots of hard working capable individuals without jobs. I disagree with you on that point

[Archibald]

No hard working individual should be without work. If you need work you go get a job. Any job. No shame in taking a shitty job. It's income and just because you have one job doesn't mean you can't look for a better one and in my experience, that's the best way to go about it. Jobs are like girlfriends, it's a lot easier to find another if you already have one.

[Archibald]

The other thing to think about here is that we've exported all the jobs that pay $25/hr. and kept the ones that pay $8/hr. We reap what we sow and we've traded a lot of folks futures to save a dollar down at the Walmart.

When I was 18 I was making >$1K a week working jobs that required AWS structural and/or ASME/API welding qualifications and could make $40/hr. working shutdowns. Here we are 30 years later and just try finding any welding position today that pays $19/hr. Those ample blue collar opportunities provided a lifetime of employment for a lot of folks and opened the doors to white collar opportunities for many, myself included. Blue collar middle class is going the way of the passenger pigeon.

[robin3mj]

I think this “entrepreneur” vs. “physicist” argument is defining things a little too black and white. How many people are career entrepreneurs, as opposed to say, a physicist who thinks up a better way to split atoms, and goes off on his own? The better mousetraps of the world are built by exterminators, or rodent psychologists, not by serial inventors.

Smart people, who are willing, should be able to find work. If you’re in a highly specialized field, and the market moves, you either move with it, or switch markets. The people who stubbornly wait for their market to come back to them are doing themselves and the economy a disservice by staying on the sideline and lamenting their fate.

[ericpmoss]

With due respect to all the non-physicists out there, I call BS on all the talk about "sorry, but you just picked the wrong field", or "just do something else for a while".

You simply CAN NOT stop doing math for 2 years, flip burgers then compete again on the world stage when the suits decide in their so-called wisdom that science is useful again. It takes day-in, day-out work at or near the cutting edge to stay in mental shape for the work. If it takes "welfare research programs" for physicists and mathematicians to stay sharp, I'm willing to pay the taxes. And anyone who cares about their nation's position in the world, and humanity's future, should, too.

Just you wait. We'll spend all our money on blowing shit up rather than building it up, and then wonder why we're #2.

[edoz]

The other thing to think about here is that we've exported all the jobs that pay $25/hr. and kept the ones that pay $8/hr. We reap what we sow and we've traded a lot of folks futures to save a dollar down at the Walmart.

When I was 18 I was making >$1K a week working jobs that required AWS structural and/or ASME/API welding qualifications and could make $40/hr. working shutdowns. Here we are 30 years later and just try finding any welding position today that pays $19/hr. Those ample blue collar opportunities provided a lifetime of employment for a lot of folks and opened the doors to white collar opportunities for many, myself included. Blue collar middle class is going the way of the passenger pigeon.

By the time I got to those shutdown jobs, I was lucky to get $26-28/hr. My job now pays $19 and I'm pretty much topped out. (and fairly lucky to be there)

[edoz]

If it takes "welfare research programs" for physicists and mathematicians to stay sharp, I'm willing to pay the taxes. And anyone who cares about their nation's position in the world, and humanity's future, should, too.

Just you wait. We'll spend all our money on blowing shit up rather than building it up, and then wonder why we're #2.

That made me think of the WPA program from back in the depression. There are a couple of WPA bridges south of Tulsa, and I still ride under them every so often. You never know, WPA 2.0 might just cure cancer or colonize the moon.

[chasea]

From my POV, the whole thing starts at the top and trickles down. A lust for higher and higher profits while providing baseline goods and services is to blame. Why hire 5 guys to do too good of a job when 4 guys will just get by on a slow day? People at the top don't really care about service because you cannot put a price on it. If you can't figure out what it costs you, or what it makes you in return investment, then why bother? If you can get by supplying x widgets for y dollars, then all that is left is to figure out how to spit out as many as you can as cheaply as possible.

There is a huge discrepancy between making quick cash and running a long-term, stable business while providing quality to the consumer. Unfortunately, we live in a time where we only care about how we can cut the maximum amount of corners. Costs more in the end, really. And who's going to pay? Why take a salary cut when you can just get rid of the low man on the totem pole?

[Archibald]

From my POV, the whole thing starts at the top and trickles down. A lust for higher and higher profits while providing baseline goods and services is to blame. Why hire 5 guys to do too good of a job when 4 guys will just get by on a slow day? People at the top don't really care about service because you cannot put a price on it. If you can't figure out what it costs you, or what it makes you in return investment, then why bother? If you can get by supplying x widgets for y dollars, then all that is left is to figure out how to spit out as many as you can as cheaply as possible.

There is a huge discrepancy between making quick cash and running a long-term, stable business while providing quality to the consumer. Unfortunately, we live in a time where we only care about how we can cut the maximum amount of corners. Costs more in the end, really. And who's going to pay? Why take a salary cut when you can just get rid of the low man on the totem pole?

You're pretty smart for a fashion whore!

[chasea]

You're pretty smart for a fashion whore!

Hey, most of my business -when I'm employed- is taking money from these overpayed idiots.

By the way, I'm currently under/unemployed. Anyone looking for a know-it-all with a real problem with authority?

[nahtnoj]

You simply CAN NOT stop doing math for 2 years, flip burgers then compete again on the world stage when the suits decide in their so-called wisdom that science is useful again.

Exactly. I'm un/underemployed right now. I would like to have a job, but would be insane to take what is out there. $8-10 an hour working in a coffee shop is an extremely poor long term decision. Instead, I network, work for free, volunteer and the bike co-op, and do short term consulting gigs while waiting for something to stick.

[doubled]

what is a 22 year old fresh out of school to do?
This is relevant to me, I am graduating in May.
I have a good idea of what I plan do do, but I based on experience here I would like to hear some suggestions.
I want to work with bikes.

[JoB]

what is a 22 year old fresh out of school to do?
This is relevant to me, I am graduating in May.
I have a good idea of what I plan do do, but I based on experience here I would like to hear some suggestions.
I want to work with bikes.

We can't give you specific advice if you don't let us know about your good idea. But generally, if you're in college, 1) pick the right major, and 2) get as much practical experience (paying jobs, internships, externships, shadowing, ...) while IN college as you can.

[doubled]

I wouldn't say I have a good idea, but that I have a good idea about what my plan is (does that make sense?). I have seven years experience working in shops even while going to school the past 4 years. I plan to work at a shop in Nyc where I can have as much exposure to customers and contacts within bicycling. I would like to think I am a hard worker and amiable, maybe reps would notice this. My goal is to build contacts, and network over the next 3-5 years.

There seems to be a bit of a barrier, granted my job search only started in October, for people right out of school. I am preparing myself to be underpaid (opinion) and just getting by until I can land something semi-stable.