Young and yearning: the harsh realities faced by Generation Y

The youth unemployment rate in "Great" Britain has been hovering around 20% for the last few months now. Social scientists have been good at noticing the trends, categorising the indicators and documenting the empirical research, but what about the things that simply cannot be tabularised or illustrated by colourful pie charts? What about the emotions, hardships and constant setbacks faced by today's youth as they try to navigate the worlds of work, education or property?
 

Put simply, the children of the 80s and 90s - described by demographers as "Generation Y" - are lost. They don't know who they are, want they want or where they are going.
 

Whilst their parents, many of whom are of the baby boomer demographic, might have had to suffer the health consequences of being e.g. a coal miner, at least this was a clear cut job with a clearly defined role and purpose. A coal miner mines coal. The end product is tangible. The purpose is clear. And on top of that, there was the possibility to mix with other people in the same profession and subscribe to a particular shared identity. The under-30s of today, on the other hand, often don't even have a "profession" as such. When asked what they do for a living - if they are indeed lucky enough to have a job at all - the answer usually doesn't start with "I'm a..." but rather "I kind of do this..." or " you know when..., well I do that" (in some instances, even just the word "call centre" suffices). Their work, which in Britain is almost exclusively in the tertiary sector, is invisible. When searching for a job, young adults are often left perplexed and confused by the job titles, which often feature huge chunks of jargon such as "SEO Executive" or "CRM Assistant" (in case you were wondering, that's search engine optimisation and customer-relationship-management, whatever that means). Even the whole process of applying for a job is alienating. Online application processes and platforms such as XING often leave applicants feeling inadequate and incompetent. To add to this changing world, where manufacturing is dead and services dominate, the recession has meant that recruiters often set out a long list of requirements that most young people cannot fulfil.
 

And why can they not fulfil them? Often it's because at school they were told to do whatever they enjoyed and whatever they thought they were good at. Unfortunately, in today's harsh world, this doesn't get you very far. Whereas their parents - either through family pressure or choice - would have chosen a specific career path at an early age and then proceeded to follow it, most of today's young adults received inadequate career guidance. Though apprenticeships are now slowly being re-introduced, most Generation Y-ers were not given this opportunity and so they have pursued one of two paths: they either left school at 16 and were able to find reasonably good employment but with little prospect of progress or development, or they went to university, came out with a Bachelor's degree in history (because they enjoyed it obviously, and because they were told that university graduates - regardless of degree - always get the best jobs) and then ended up doing the same or similar job as their peers who quit education after their GCSEs. And that's if they're lucky.
People often speak of "soft skills", but where are the people with the "hard" skills? Not counting the medical profession and what remains of the engineering sector, I'd say that nobody has them. What happened to the butchers and bakers and candlestick makers? This is what the identity crisis can be traced back to. Without clear roles and purposes, people are not able to identify themselves as being something. It is not surprising that extremist groups such as the EDL or the BNP have thrived in recent years: their supporters, with no prospect of belonging to a profession, are senselessly struggling to cling on to whatever it is that somehow binds them together as people. The same can be said of the rise in gang culture.
 

Combined with the effects of the rampant materialism and unabashed consumerism that not only dominates but is in fact encouraged in our society today, life for a young adult in the 21st century can be quite bleak. No wonder many youths feel the need to drink themselves half to death every weekend. Any optimism, enthusiasm or ambition that is experienced when leaving education - whether that be high school, sixth form or university - is often extinguished by the obstacles and glass ceilings, not to mention poor wages, that are encountered by most young people today. Those that are fortunate enough to be in some kind of employment are often over-qualified and under-paid for the work they are doing. Their friends are in similar or perhaps even worse situations, so there exists an attitude of "put up and shut up". However, is it really right that someone in their mid-20s should complacently accept their job and abandon their ambition?
With no clear avenue of progression or opportunities for advancement (except for becoming a "team leader" at the local call centre), the youth of today are left with little to aspire to. The concept of "success" is something that is far removed from their daily lives. Unlike their parents who were able to take advantage of cheap property prices during the 80s and early 90s, most under-30s have been forced into a lifetime of renting - often at extortionate rates - and can only dream of one day owning their own property. Even their cars, if they drive one, are largely financed by credit.
 

What long-term effects is this having? For those that exhibited intelligence during their education years and were told by their teachers that they had the potential to go on to do big things, the last decade has proved to be a big smack in the face. And the saddest part is that any intelligence they did have has probably been lost now to some dead-end job that has induced regression and degeneration and in some cases led to depression. Even those that were not labelled as "intelligent" at school are suffering mentally from the consequences of being under-challenged and under-paid at work. Once ambition has been lost, it is very difficult to recover. Self-confidence, not to mention self-awareness, is extremely low amongst many youths. It is easy for precedents to be set that will carry on throughout their lives, and quite possibly also down to the next generation.
 

And so, as already said, the youths of today are lost. They yearn for opportunities and outlets to express their skills and talents but are rewarded only with menial jobs that lack the challenges or tangible end products that are necessary to feel like they are contributing to their community and to society at large. And so they remain in a constant limbo - stuck in the phase where they can just about pay their bills, afford a couple of drinks on a Friday night and, if they're fortunate enough, a cheap holiday to Spain once a year. But beyond that phase is the unknown. Aspiring beyond that is not possible. And that's sad.