What about the youth?

I have found that in today's society that people are often filled with a sense of ennui, and a sense of increasing depression for the future. We have a growing and aging population, but because of the growing increases in costs in the western world there has been a dramatic increase in people starving off retirement. But what are the ramifications of such actions/

Keeping people in the work force is good in keeping these people purpose, giving them a sense of self control and allowing them to support themselves, not to mention the health benefits of having people continue to actively engage with other people, their work, and society at large. But what of the younger generation? If people are staying longer in the workforce, and we are gaining a larger population through immigration, new borns, migrating to the states where the work is, and off shoring of jobs where will people become employed?

'Australia is surviving the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) very well' is a phrase we have been feed for a while now, it even became a selling point for the Labor Party during the recent election- 'Labor got us through the GFC'- but who is the 'us'. Is it the baby boomer? The X-Gen? The Y-Gen? Possibly it was all of us, but not everybody has been left unscared.

The ABS states that Australia's unemployment rate has decreased from about 5.8% in August 2009, to 5.2% currently- but the current unemployment rate for those under 24 seeking full time work is nearly double at 11%. The people who will 'Advance Australia Fair' are being left behind because we cannot find jobs for them. It does seem unfair to call on the youth to look after the growing and aging population when a substantially large portion of them are unable to become gainfully employed.

Youth who are unemployed will have to deal with some large restricting factors such as; the lack of references and experience that will enable them to further their careers, and it often leads to what we see on the streets and at time highlighted in the media- the disengaged, and uncaring youth. Sociologist Robert Merton talks about the concept of 'anomie' (a term that was used by earlier sociologist Emile Durkheim), in which he describes a 'discontinuity between cultural goals and the legitimate means available for reaching them'. This means if we show through our films and through our 'important people', that money and a successful and job are what is required to be happy and live comfortably, and then we have a situation like this 11% where the youth are unable to gain access to these jobs through applications, we are either going to push them towards gaining the end goals of money and/or happiness by unconventional or criminal means (drugs, theft), or they are going to give up ever achieving these goals, and thus we would have lost these potential leaders and developers of tommorrow because we have diminished the problem.

Labor has been talking about increasing Trade Skills, and having trade school. This is a good start, but we have students and youth who are not skilled and/or interested in the area -perhaps because we have presented other more attractive and lucrative job prospects than the common 'tradie'- most of which are not necessarily true. What about the students who are skilled in writing, those who are good in mathematics, or those who are good at other skills. We have a push and shove situation now for those applying for jobs, and this will only increase in generations to come if we do not start to develop skills and industries that will increase job prospects for the future- perhaps green energy or the materials industry would be a good place to start.

We should be preparing for the future, and we should let our leaders know, and inform the youth that we have not forgotten about them. So write a letter to your local MP or your State Premier and inform them that now that the election debacle is over, we should be preparing for our future, the next generation that will be leading us out of the next crisis financial or otherwise.


Dale Stam