On 2002-08-07 13:53, JustinLong wrote:
Here's something that has generations written all over it...
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,436495,00.asp
Dvorak @ Pc Magazine
August 5, 2002
Where are the Summer Jobs?
By John C. Dvorak
Total posts: 76
Where are all the jobs that technology promised? And exactly why are there so many kids without summer jobs of any sort? It's out of control.
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Some of this may have to do with the economy in general, but I blame the loss of the manufacturing base. What happens to manufacturing has effects
beyond manufacturing itself. There are social implications. This was brought to my attention last week as I was roaming around the quaint Victorian town of Port Townsend, Washington. Everywhere I looked, there were groups of teenagers hanging out with apparently nothing better to do than smoke and chat with each other. Normally, you'd see a few kids during the summer, but it looked like the town was taken over by them. Many were sitting on the sidewalk making the place look like a country town in the deep South during the 1930s. Port Townsend is not a manufacturing town, but seeing what was happening there made me look around more. Everywhere I go, I see an excessive number of kids with absolutely nothing to do. A few exhibitionist kids seem to relish making out in public, but the rest just smoke and chat.
So where are all these jobs that the technology revolution was supposed to create? Over the years we were constantly told that for every X number of jobs that technology eliminated it would create X plus Y jobs. It seems to me that Y turned out to be a negative number.
The only summer jobs available to students nowadays seem to be in fast food restaurants at minimum wage or in retail at minimum wage. And retailers seem to be suffering, so there is little opportunity there. Office jobs for students are virtually nonexistent and most kids have to take internships?and internship is the biggest scam in the history of business. "Intern" usually means someone who gets coffee.
I hate to date myself, but when I was in high school I had no trouble finding a union job in a factory. The big auto plants run by companies like Ford and GM had programs to hire students for the summer. I worked variously at International Harvester, Trailmobile, Kaiser Aluminum, and elsewhere. I was paid a good wage and received good benefits. (Curiously, in all those companies I always gravitated toward the job of inspector. Once a critic, always a critic, no?)
Anyway, it was easy to finance college just working three months a year. Now you have to work part-time all year round and you still can't afford school. Does anyone see a problem here?
And if things weren't bad enough for the young people of America, I sense an anti-youth movement. An interesting article got my attention. Apparently Silicon Valley and the entrepreneurs have all changed their opinions about who to hire. They now prefer the "gray-hairs." This is probably because the old-timers, after being locked out of work for so long, will work cheaply now. But among the rationalizations, you find a subtle contempt for the younger employee. The young CEO's are now being blamed for the dot-com disaster despite the fact that all they did was what they were told to do by the "experts" in the investment community. It seems to me that this sudden anti-youth movement must have some effect on the student job market too.
Whatever the case, you get an overwhelming feeling that today's high-tech managers lack any sense of social responsibility. This is reflected in the ridiculous salaries they give themselves combined with the cavalier attitude they have toward workers. Very few companies are even attempting work-sharing or other techniques to keep people employed during the downturn. This is creating a deep resentment toward business in this country, and the resentment is worsening. My recent online columns on this topic, from the piece trashing MBA's to the China Syndrome column of last week, are relevant here. I've never seen as much piling on from obviously smart and savvy readers as I've seen from reactions to these recent columns.
stwb: I couldn't agree more, regarding the lack of a social conscious. Most companies, and not just the tech sector, have no regard for society, their employees, their global or local communities. Their only loyalty is to Wall Street and their investors, and most have a very short focus.
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Methuss: Don't forget
that many, if not most, of these kids you are seeing hanging out wouldn't take a manufacturing job if offered to them. There is a definate contempt that most high-school kids have these days toward manual labor.
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lgbowman: I am a
small employer with summer jobs to offer. Many of the kids that apply are not interested in removing their piercings or pulling up their pants.
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Once a moniker is put on a profession, it's hard to remove. People think all politicians are crooks, for example. And lawyers have managed to get their profession derided and stereotyped with
jokes. But the CEOs have been unscathed. It's always been kind of cool to be a CEO. What happens if they are all stereotyped as unethical, crooked book-cookers who care about nobody but themselves? How does an executive walk away from a dead company with $750 million in his pocket? I'd recommend a rescreening of the rentable TV Movie Barbarians at the Gate in this new climate, and see what you think.
All I know is that I'm seeing a lot of kids who don't even try to get summer jobs, because there are no jobs to be had. These kids have lost hope. So they smoke and hang out. Tell me what you're seeing. Is there a solution to this dilemma? I don't think so.
