As much as I hate to say this ... This sounds like another "act of
/rendition/" or is it plain fear raising its head as bigotry. Would this
person have had the same ("we need experience") claim if he had a 'good
ole boy' sounding name?
As far as "small business" start-up loans, if it is the same interest
formulation as is used for higher education, it will be (generally) a
'losing deal' with more people ending in bankruptcy and even greater debt.
Darryl
On 2/4/2011 12:53 PM, Ed Weick wrote:
FROM TODAY'S gLOBE AND mAIL
eD
------------------------------------------------------------------------
jOB FEARS FOR A LOST gENERATION
TAVIA GRANT
Globe and Mail Update
PublishedThursday, Feb. 03, 2011 7:15PM EST
Last updatedFriday, Feb. 04, 2011 7:11AM EST
Shreyas Rangappa graduated with a master's degree in electrical and
computer engineering from Dalhousie University in October. He figures
he has sent out 600 to 700 résumés across North America since then.
He's willing to move, and to work outside his field. So far, though,
no luck.
"They all prefer prior experience," Mr. Rangappa, 26, said in an
interview from Halifax. "You just sit at home, and all you can think
is you need to get a job. And you don't know what you're doing wrong."
Meet the face of youth unemployment in 2011, a legacy of the global
economic meltdown that is pressuring governments in North America and
helping to feed deep social unrest the world over. Anger in Egypt and
Tunisia over youth joblessness represented nothing less than a
"ticking time bomb" waiting to explode, International Monetary Fund
chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said this week. Around the world, the
problem not only hurts the young but threatens growth for decades to come.
It's not only Egypt, where anger over a youth unemployment rate of
about 25 per cent helped fuel protests over poverty and repression,
where the problem is surfacing. In Spain, almost half of young people
are without work. In Canada, the rate is almost 14 per cent, nearly
twice the national average. And in the United States, it's 18 per cent.
In a speech on Thursday in Washington, one day before the U.S. and
Canadian governments release their employment snapshot for January,
U.S. Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke gave younger job
seekers little hope for optimism. Any recent U.S. job gains have been
"barely sufficient to accommodate the inflow of recent graduates and
other new entrants to the labour force," he said.
It's a labour force some aren't even bothering to enter. As
unemployment spiked through the global recession, young people started
giving up the search. About 1.7 million discouraged youth dropped out
of or delayed entry into the labour market between 2007 and 2009, a
United Nations group said this week.
"This represents a huge waste of human potential, which could have
serious long-term repercussions for the affected young people
themselves and for societies at large," said the International Labour
Organization, which has repeatedly warned of the spectre of a "lost
generation."
Long periods of unemployment tend to leave long-lasting scars. Young
people left out of the labour market tend to see their skills
deteriorate and bargaining power diminish the longer they are out of
work. Youth who leave school during recessions typically see a
lifetime hit to earnings, academic studies have shown.
The flashpoints this year have been in Tunisia and Egypt. The region
of the Middle East and North Africa has the highest youth unemployment
rate in the world, at about 24 per cent, according to the ILO.
Canada's situation seems a far cry from Egypt's. Youth unemployment,
at 13.8 per cent, is lower than that of other countries and the rate
has come down in recent months. But the numbers can be misleading.
While the rate has fallen, it's largely owing to a drop in the
participation rate, which is close to a decade low. In December,
391,000 young people were counted as unemployed, up from 379,500 in
November.
"We're seeing elevated demand from all sectors, from those who don't
have high school to those who have university degrees. It's taking
them all so much longer. We see there's a frustration and a lack of
hope," said Nancy Schaefer, president of Youth Employment Services in
Toronto.
The ripple effects are numerous: more kids living at home for longer;
more in youth shelters or reduced to "couch surfing" at friends'
houses; more working in the underground economy without job security
or benefits -- and more dealing drugs, she said.
She would like to see a new Canadian youth employment strategy -- one
that includes awareness campaigns and incentives for employers, and
funding for entrepreneurship programs to help youth train for small
business startups.
Demand for programs that teach skills and help people start their own
businesses is growing, said Kathy Murphy, president of the Centre for
Entrepreneurship Education and Development, which runs youth
employment programs throughout Nova Scotia -- which has the country's
highest youth unemployment rate, at 18.6 per cent.
Without work, "they're leaving the area, or they sometimes go back to
school. Or, in more severe cases, they get into crime or back into
poverty because there are not opportunities."
The educated seem disproportionately hit. In Montreal, Juliana Pelaez,
who has a degree in international business, and speaks English, French
and Spanish, is in a similar boat to Mr. Rangappa. "Trying to look for
a job always every day, and not receiving any interviews or calls,
it's frustrating. There's not a lot of professional opportunities out
there."
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
