By J.D.R. Brown (The Cascade) – Email
Date Posted: August 29, 2011
Print Edition: August 25, 2011
Just as the fall semester is ramping up, the summer employment season for youths and students is winding down. Recent political and economic shenanigans in the United States and Europe have dominated headlines in the dog days, quite effectively monopolizing media coverage of the ongoing economic malaise. Two years ago, the student jobs crisis at least received a bare mention. Today, with a student unemployment rate of 17.4 per cent, there’s been nothing. Not even a peep.
The Lesser Depression – as economists have begun to call this downturn – is an event entirely outside the experience of the three generations born since the end of the Second World War. Since the advent of the welfare state 60 years ago, and the introduction of comprehensive financial regulation following the Great Depression, the extremes of the business cycle have been lessened. Even with its excesses, the capitalist enterprise has given rise to technologically advanced societies with greater levels of education and equity than has ever before been seen. And with these gifts of historic prosperity and marvellous technology, our parents and the politicians who pander to them have sold us all out.
The radical turn toward austerity is but one small example of the self-aggrandizing narcissism which an entire generation of leaders in industry and politics have embraced. The entire discourse in the West is dominated by policies which will extend the fruits of a century of activism and citizen engagement just long enough that the baby boomers will be able to collect on their pensions. In the meantime, the youth are left to contend with stagnant real incomes, historically high levels of student debt, unemployment which sits uncomfortably between 15-19 per cent, and taxation levels last seen during the Gilded Age.
I’m interested in a very basic question, which no one has been able to answer. Where are the jobs? Where is the promised prosperity? Where are the jobs?
In recessions, entry level, low skilled, and part time positions are overwhelmingly the first to be cut, laid-off, or lost. The “job-less recovery” we have experienced these past two years has been enough to blunt some of the pain, especially for those with money in the markets. But for the young and the very old, for students and the unskilled, our misery has been drawn out across two summers and two school years.
We are careening toward a lost decade, and only decisive action can stop it. Massive fiscal stimulus, with overwhelming direct expenditure on infrastructure, healthcare, and education will avert catastrophe and alleviate much suffering. As sensible as this reaction would be, our political leaders have thrown out all reason and understanding. No one is talking about fiscal stimulus, and no one is talking about jobs.
I have railed against the commodification of education in columns past, and I still very much despise the transformation of universities into job training facilities. But even according to the infantile and perverse logic of education-as-training, our governments, politicians and institutions are failing us. For students and the unemployed, there are next to no options for recourse.
In the meantime, we will have to avail ourselves of the options that do exist, slim as they are. For most, that means more debt, more education and more hoping. I hope that when I finally graduate, employment will be a reality rather than some statistic. You had best hope for your sake, too.
