Generation Y are suffering
According to this blog in The Independent, Generation Y are suffering from the recession.
Some of the reader comments are interesting – pointing out young(er) and old(er) are being pitted against each other when in fact there are other divisions within society that might have greater explanatory power.
Professor Katrina Pritchard
Rebecca Whiting
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Age at Work 
Mmmm…interesting article and comments that followed it. Some, clearly moved into other areas…
However, not sure if I understand this..Yes, absolutely we are in the middle one of the worst downturns in history, and getting a job – regardless of age – is not easy at all. I fully understand that. But – it has never been easy to get a job.…and I wonder if younger people may have forgotten about this…
Let me turn the clock back a little: To be offered my first serious job in the late 1980s I had to go through capability tests and 2 interviews– and this was after 6 months of temping in well known organisations (because I could not find a permanent job due to lack of experience in the field I was applying for). After 2.5 years of my first serious role, I went through 12 gruelling interviews, and 0.5 days unpaid hands-on testing on the actual prospective job before I was offered my second formal job. Prior to doing any of these more formal corporate roles, I had already gathered 2 years work experience at large retail organisations: dealing with the general public, serving customers, finding solutions for them, etc. (jobs that were not easy to get either), getting office work experience, etc.
However… I seem to be hearing that Gen Yers are having it more difficult than Gen Xers had it in the late 1980s/early 1990s? Perhaps I had a tough time when I was younger and others had it easier, it could be. However, I tend to pass large numbers of coffee shops, retail businesses, etc. these days they seem to have a number of vacancies advertised on their windows and websites.. People have to start somewhere in life and it may not be a junior managerial role to start with…However, rather than being on benefits – I did jobs that were not exactly ‘ideal’ but that would count towards work experience. I am sorry.. whilst I have a lot of empathy for people that genuinely cannot find a job, I have little pity for people who simply can’t be bothered to do what they call ‘menial’ jobs even if these will count as ‘work experience’ because they can get similar money on benefits instead.
Mmm…yes…. younger and older generations are being pitted against each other…it is interesting… particularly because authors such as Duncan and Loretto (2004) highlight employees over the age of 45 and younger ones (under 25) were the most prone to negative age discrimination. On a side note, this appears to be more prominent for women than men…
Similarly interesting are the findings of Ng and Feldman (2008): they report an inverted U shape relationship between age and task performance for people in different age groups. That relationship appears to be more positive and strongest for 31-35 years old, but weaker for employees under 30 and negative for workers over 40. This may help to understand why certain knowledge-intensive industries may have a ‘preferred age’ bias…..