Welcome to a working world that doesn’t understand you, might not want to hire you, and definitely doesn’t want to pay you very much. (Pre COVID)
Fortune Magazine
During COVID: Underemployed. Unemployed. Angry. Resentful. Nowhere to go. This seems to be the story of many of millennials and Gen Z’ers throughout the world who are unemployed or underemployed. By the way, this is a global phenomenon. Look at Uganda, Hong Kong, and EU.
There are more college graduates than high paying jobs. This is caused much angst in many family households in the U.S. and throughout the world. Pre COVID, the numbers were discouraging:
“Fully 20% of men aged 24 to 55 did not have full-time jobs and nearly half of all new college graduates are unable to find a job that comports with their education.”[i]
Every week, we talk with parents whose children cannot find gainful employment. The parents are very successful lawyers, engineers, or physicians. They seem embarrassed over their kids, who were the ‘best and brightest’ in high school and went to the best colleges. However, they got non-marketable college degrees in Russian film, gender studies, French art history, or similar topic.[ii]
These parents worked hard and excelled. They usually co-signed or picked up all the college loans. Many parents feel that branded college and university was the means for their children to find themselves emotionally and occupationally. The unsaid is that it was an awfully expensive experiment that may have diminished ROI:
“A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre showed that a mere 16% of Americans think that a four-year degree course prepares students very well for a high paying job in the modern economy.”[iii]
Work Lesson Earned: Along with the impacts of automation, there’s simply not enough high paying work to go around in a tech-driven, globalized economy. Graduates simply do not have the life, work, and tech skills to work and understand COVID work disruption rules.
[i] ‘Replaceable You’, Newsweek Magazine, November 30 2018.
[ii] ‘A Millennial’s Field Guide to Mastering Your Career’, Fortune Magazine, January 4, 2016.
[iii] ‘Learning and Earning’, Economist, January 14, 2017.