Young people isolated in the working world

[Josh.0]

Im waiting for the student loan bubble to explode.

I've met a girl who was fresh out of college working at walgreens making 10 an hour with 120k in student loan debt.

almost all of my friends that just graduated are in that same boat right now.

We're raising Generation Dumbass. Kids are unwilling to work their ass off from the bottom up. They are entitled, convinced they are worth more than they are and are impatient.

so freaking true.

[Rreemo]

We have a college hire program at my company (MACH) - http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/sg/mach.aspx , and while I think it is a great program to help shape the workforce fresh out of college, I'm often amazed (in a disappointing way) at the level of hires we are seeing come through this program in more recent years. It used to be that we would get a 50/50 mix on folks with talent and drive vs. those without (8-10 yrs ago), however in the last few years it's gotten to where we see literally only 2 good ones out of about every 10. This in direct relation to the drop in avg level of maturity as far as I can see.

These kids coming out of college today need A LOT of hand holding, and not just with things like you'd expect such as technology readiness, customer facing skills, etc...it's stupid simple stuff like multiple reminders of deadlines, how to use simple internal tools for expenses and operational stuff....and even getting to work on-time in a lot of cases. Their expectations are extremely HIGH too....entitlement is out the window with most of them. It's honestly a bit scary from my vantage point....I can't imagine what the workforce is going to look like in another decade.

BTW, on the OP's #4 above. In full agreement there, but also as someone who works for a corp giant that heavily leverages offshore outsourcing, I do not think that there is enough taxation put upon these companies who decide to send so much labor to other markets. To the contrary, our govt is so damned concerned with globalization of economy that they've entirely lost focus on what built America in the first place. We need to be taxing these US-based companies that offshore their labor much more aggressively! It's certainly not what those companies want to hear, and that is b/c they are cutting costs so dramatically....I have personally seen where offshore resource savings have netted around 75%! If a company is improving their P&L numbers to those extremes it should be treated like capital gains IMO.

[Baron Von Crowder]

We're raising Generation Dumbass. Kids are unwilling to work their ass off from the bottom up. They are entitled, convinced they are worth more than they are and are impatient.

Well, working from the bottom up is essentially gone now, too. There arent many places that will train you and let you work up the chain.

[Vertnut]

It's a scam. Let ALL kids go to college and borrow $30-$40k each (and tuition continues to rise each year), and pay the government back at a 8.9% rate? It's one more thing that makes you a slave to the government. My wife had loans @ 2.3%. Government "backed" loans and Obama-Care are similar in that anytime the government takes things over, the cost goes up.

[Sean88gt]

We're raising Generation Dumbass. Kids are unwilling to work their ass off from the bottom up. They are entitled, convinced they are worth more than they are and are impatient.

[4king]

My work hires kids straight out of college who can interview well but never work a job before. Their typical turnover rate is every 6 months, on nearly all of them. You mean I can't work 9-5 with weekends off and make six figures ohhh noooo I quit

, the kids who got straight a's in college and got scholar ships expecting to change the world just don't get working and go back to school again because that's all they know

Then the people who can't interview at all and have college degrees sit around with all the debt making $10 an hour

Meanwhile the guy busting his ass with 3 kids who trains these college kids get a $.035 raise per year and can't get promoted

[kingjason]

There is absolutely no financial incentive to be married. Where I use to work, almost every report was common law/ cohabitating in the status column. Why the hell would you want a piece of paper that would screw up all your taxes, and benefits. My wife was in school when we got married, working one day a week, part time. It cost us about 1500 on our taxes the first year we filed together.

[Strychnine]

The article mentions in the 3rd paragraph that 20% of all people between 19 and 29 are married today? I'd love to see the source for that statistic because I don't buy it.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/12/14/barely-half-of-u-s-adults-are-married-a-record-low/

Pew Research - Social & Demographic Trends Project

Released: December 14, 2011

Barely half of all adults in the United States—a record low—are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides (26.5 years) and grooms (28.7), according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.

In 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married; today just 51% are. If current trends continue, the share of adults who are currently married will drop to below half within a few years. Other adult living arrangements—including cohabitation, single-person households and single parenthood—have all grown more prevalent in recent decades.

The Pew Research analysis also finds that the number of new marriages in the U.S. declined by 5% between 2009 and 2010, a sharp one-year drop that may or may not be related to the sour economy.

The United States is by no means the only nation where marriage has been losing “market share” for the past half century. The same trend has taken hold in most other advanced post-industrial societies, and these long-term declines appear to be largely unrelated to the business cycle. The declines have persisted through good economic times and bad.

In the United States, the declines have occurred among all age groups, but are most dramatic among young adults. Today, just 20% of adults ages 18 to 29 are married, compared with 59% in 1960. Over the course of the past 50 years, the median age at first marriage has risen by about six years for both men and women.

It is not yet known whether today’s young adults are abandoning marriage or merely delaying it. Even at a time when barely half of the adult population is married, a much higher share— 72%—have been married at least once. However, this “ever married” share is down from 85% in 1960.

{cut out}

All data from the American Community Surveys and decennial censuses are from tabulations done by the Pew Research Center using microdata files obtained from the Integrated Public-Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) database6. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2010.] (http://www.ipums.org/). The censuses of 1980, 1990 and 2000 are 5% samples of the U.S. population. All other files are 1% samples of the U.S. population.

[Binky]

Droz: What's your major?

College Hippie: Sanskrit.

Droz: Sanskrit. You're majoring in a 5000 year-old dead language?

Sanskrit Major: Yeah.

Droz: hmmm... latin, best I can do. next.

(Jock walks up)

Droz: Phys Ed? get out of here. i mean, no, really get out of here.

[Baron Von Crowder]

I know there was a paragraph in there where the author said the kids don't blame anyone else, but that article was full of blame. "I get tricked", "I blame my parents because they couldn't afford to send me to college", they cant navigate financial aid, they get too much financial aid, and so on. If you cant google how to navigate aid or find someone to help with financial aid then you dont have the skills for college any damn way. Take responsibility.

One of the problems is within the kids themselves. The one kid pictured himself going to work in a suit & buying stuff. Did he ever picture what he'd be doing? Did he research what it would take to become what he wanted to be? What it would take tomget a job in his field & how to work his way up? Sounds like he just assumed that he'd go to college then magically be working & making good money.

Plus lol that people are still too stupid to realize that, yes, some people are born to make coffee, flip burgers, clean houses...

My school district is bringing back the career path classes. They just call them something different and there are more choices & updated training instead of just "shop".

I dated a chick that was going to school with no idea what major to work on, with no clue on a profession when she was done with school. She was going to school so she could get a good job and be rich. That was about 9 years ago, and she was working at home depot last time I saw her.

[Kimmypie]

I know there was a paragraph in there where the author said the kids don't blame anyone else, but that article was full of blame. "I get tricked", "I blame my parents because they couldn't afford to send me to college", they cant navigate financial aid, they get too much financial aid, and so on. If you cant google how to navigate aid or find someone to help with financial aid then you dont have the skills for college any damn way. Take responsibility.

One of the problems is within the kids themselves. The one kid pictured himself going to work in a suit & buying stuff. Did he ever picture what he'd be doing? Did he research what it would take to become what he wanted to be? What it would take tomget a job in his field & how to work his way up? Sounds like he just assumed that he'd go to college then magically be working & making good money.

Plus lol that people are still too stupid to realize that, yes, some people are born to make coffee, flip burgers, clean houses...

My school district is bringing back the career path classes. They just call them something different and there are more choices & updated training instead of just "shop".

[Binky]

All my college degree really did for me is get me into job interviews and positions where they required a 4yr piece of paper - focus of study was irrelevant.

What this country seriously needs is more tradeskillers. Plumbers, Steel workers, welders - our infrastructure is falling apart and everyone is running across the ship to the "management/white collar" side and the whole boat is is out of keel.

[jakesford]

1. Completely agree - I have my degrees, and a good job because of them, but I have plenty of friends that went to college that probably shouldn't have. They ended up with debt, no degree, and a few years behind the curve.

2 & 3. I sort of agree. I think it goes back to a lack of financial literacy among a vast majority of the population. I believe that finance and accounting should be taught in elementary school through high school. Access to money for higher education is not a bad thing, but making informed decisions by the borrowers is important.

4. To clarify your point, there are tax incentives out there for domestic production but there are a lot of factors here including EPA regulations that can make "smoke stack" industry cost prohibitive. (at least our air doesn't look like Bejing's right now). Also, while Texas may not have an income tax, we do have a "franchise tax" which is based upon Gross receipts. On top of that you have property taxes, so saying Texas is a tax haven isn't really true these days.

[whitetrash]

They were trying to shove college down our throats 10 years ago when I graduated. We had a few vocational classes but none carried any professional merit as far as I know.

Today I know of a handful of people that make more money than I do and I never set foot in any kind of school after hs. And a large portion of those that went to college are still waiting tables

[Randy]

Im waiting for the student loan bubble to explode.

I've met a girl who was fresh out of college working at walgreens making 10 an hour with 120k in student loan debt.

And no pics??