the lost generation. unemployment

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/youth-joblessness-surging-oecd-warns/article1541597/

Even Canada - which saw a milder recession than elsewhere - youth jobless levels have shot up to 15.6 per cent, and actually crept higher last month.

And it’s not going to improve any time soon, the report said.

“The short-term prospects for youth unemployment in the OECD countries remain rather gloomy,” the 34-page report said. Youth were “among the first to lose their jobs and are finding it particularly difficult to get another one.”

Against this backdrop, the youth unemployment rate “is expected to stay at a high level over the next two years and many unemployed youth are likely to experience a prolonged period of joblessness.”

That’s troubling on a number of fronts. For disadvantaged youth who lack basic education, failing to find work can have long-term consequences on their careers - a term known as “scarring.”

Other long-term effects of prolonged joblessness include impacts on happiness, job satisfaction and health in the ensuing years.

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D: why not use affirmative action? Cycle folks through social assistance.
So at least youth get some job experience.
After all, in 10-20 years, they'll hafta work to replace all those retiring Boomers.

Aside: I read that the recessions caused the CPP a loss worth 14% of its value. Ouch.
That a group pension yields 30% more payoff than a private RRSP.
That Joe Sixpack, if he saves for retirement his whole work career, needs to set aside 11% of revenue.
Hmm.

D: funny how 'age discrimination' implicitly means against the OLD.
Well, the idea that a worker won't be around that long is matched by the unwillingness to train them in the first place.

D: I've been reading over the math curriculum in schools.
I am befuddled by what the top university-bound students are expeted to know.

http://www.osstf.on.ca/Default.aspx?DN=76e080a5-0ec6-4448-8bba-67494d2add93

James Cote, a UWO prof, talks about "credentialism".

"...“pushed” into the institution by parent and peer pressure, rather than “pulled” into it by a love of learning; as a result, many students are simply “not prepared for the rigours of the university curriculum.”
A major reason for the recent push is “credentialism,” the commonly held view that the chief purpose of a university education is to get the credential (degree) needed for a rewarding job. The Canadian economy, however, has not co-operated in this quest. In the 1990s, it produced only one job requiring a university degree for every two graduates, leaving many of the latter underemployed, frustrated and disillusioned.
And as the university becomes less an ivory tower and more a corporation, a business ethos threatens to take hold: students become consumers, credentials the product. In the “credential mart,” as Côté calls the new university, the student has “become much more caught up in education as a means to an end...rather than viewing it as an end in itself, an opportunity for self-discovery and intellectual development in the moment [sic].”

D: why have I never read that factoid before? So of course only half of U grads get jobs in their field!
I'm guessing in good part based on such informal factors as family connections and personal networking.

http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/sociology/cote/cote%20&%20levine%202000.pdf

"...a fallacy if such credentials do not represent some quality that can be used
later (Fallows, 1985). According to Statistics Canada (1994), “almost two-
thirds of new jobs between 1991 and 2000 will require at least 13 years of
education or training and 45% will require more than 16 years” (p. 22). Yet,
for many of these jobs, many of the skills taught in educational settings are
not directly used, beyond certain levels of literacy and numeracy (Côté &
Allahar, 1996). In any event, evaluations of these government policies and
labor force practices often use simple educational input-output logics, ignor-
ing what takes place in between, particularly in classrooms and with student-
faculty interactions."

D: Allahar and Cote suggested most jobs require basic literacy and numeracy, and then some weeks of on-the-job training.

D: I personally think most Liberal Art majors should have taken something else.
UW's co-op is really just a combination of remedial for high school's shortcomings, and much-needed job experience.
I only think those interested in learning itself, who want to stay in the academia, ought to be taking it.
For that matter, the claim that it helps with sophisticated thinking might be more credible if taking critical thinking and logic was mandatory.
Hell, poli-sci at UW does not even require stats!