go west young man
Broadly speaking and, not withstanding obvious exceptions, the widely held belief is that work is undeniably good and not working is undeniably bad. As a ‘first generation’ university graduate (ok, polytechnic then) the protestant work ethic was thoroughly drummed into me by both word and deed, with the unspoken ambition of a job in an office the ultimate. As my own progeny approaches a similar age my mind turns to his goals and of my influence in them.
As to be expected, there is the usual conflict and argument over the exact figures and statistics, but roughly speaking one in five, 20%, of our 18 to 25 year olds are out of work. And this is happening at a time when education is becoming increasingly expensive, traditional manufacturing jobs are on the endangered species list, if not already extinct, and effective apprenticeships a dim and distant reminder of our nostalgic past. If our young make it through school, and get to college, they’ll be in debt for what must seem, to them at least, like forever (and the coalition have the temerity to denounce the labelling of their new scheme as anything but a graduate tax). Even for those who obtain the holy grail of an enabling apprenticeship leading to paid employ, the idea of adulthood as an autonomous state and rite of passage, can seem an eternity away.
Jobs are going to those with experience. As was always the case I hear you cry. But it wasn’t. I know from personal familial experience that in the times when we’d never had it so good, you could finish at one place in one job on a Friday and start at a different one in a different job on Monday, largely irrespective of any such ‘experience’. I guess this would account for why we always had spam on Thursday. Potentially the hatches may have to be battened down. And, they’re not specifically going to experience in this day and age – surely if they were, the older we become, the more experience we gain and the more attractive we would become to employers. With the exception of supermarkets and garden centres do you see any great urgency to hire an ageing workforce? Me neither. The truth of the matter is that jobs are not going to the young because they don’t have the necessary experience and they’re not going to the elderly as they don’t have the right experience. The selected pool of the work force is becoming smaller and smaller, compressed on many sides.
For the vast majority of us unemployment is not a desirable state of affairs at any level, emotionally, physically or mentally. Work provides us with status, identity, friendships, social interaction and hopefully a living wage. The next tranche of graduates and school leavers will be released into the community come summer and they’re going to find it’s tough out there. Yes, of course some, through a combination of luck, ability and effort, will land on their feet and start upon the most challenging part of their life’s journey to date, but most, I’m sad to say, won’t. Some will educate themselves further, some will add vocational skills, some will intern for free and many more will wonder why they ever sought to follow a path in further education in the first place.
Irrespective of its Nazi context, ‘Work will make you free’ is something that many of us, passively or otherwise, have subscribed to lock-stock-and-barrel but exactly where are these jobs and where are they in the number the next generation needs them? The potential scale of youth unemployment worries me.
