Let me start by saying I’m not having a go at News.com.au here, but the “job seeker” Michael Gowers who wrote the article.
Lets look beyond the intellectual snobbery this guy offers first, because there’s two really weird quotes in the article (well, there’s more, but these one stands out.)
Along with many of my friends, I never paid much mind to the idea that one day I might be unemployed. For my generation, who are used to a permanently strong economy, it was just never going to happen.
For myself and the rest of the Generation Xers who grew up in a time where work was plentiful, this experience is one that crushes one’s sense of self-worth and leads to an every day battle to maintain hope and keep up the momentum of searching for work.
Now I’m a member of Gen X, and I fit the definition of a young Gen Xer as well because I was born towards the end of the accepted time frame for Gen X (depending on the source, Gen X is anywhere from 1965 through to 1980, although some put the end date earlier at 1975, the year I was born).
Here’s the thing: I didn’t grow up in a time where work was always plentiful. Indeed, when I finished high school in 1993, it was so hard to get a job that entry marks into Universities hit record highs. But maybe my memory is faulty, so lets get some figures.
According to the ABS, unemployment in Australia in August 1993 was 10.7%, but significantly higher again in states like Victoria and Tasmania. It peaked that year at 10.9% after several years above 10%. Although things did turn, by 1997 the figure was only down to 8.7%. Notable is that “youth unemployment” has always been significantly higher than the general rate.
The quotes from Michael Gowers are bullshit. We’ve had a good run from maybe the turn of the century, but the 90’s weren’t a cake walk. What I can’t work out is why use the lines: they aren’t lines that make him a sympathetic character, but an entitled one. As some of the comments note, boo-ho.
Here’s another line that made me laugh:
That is my reality in 2009 now that I am a fulltime unemployed professional jobseeker.
note the “professional jobseeker” part. That’s not meant to imply that he’s a professional at seeking jobs, but he’s looking for a professional job. And here in lies the problem, he’s a job snob.
Don’t get me wrong. Australia has a fantastic system that provides benefits and assistance to those in need. It is not, however, designed to cope with highly qualified individuals who have found themselves out of work
So what he means is that he’s somehow better than others who are unemployed but don’t have three degrees? give me a break.
Everyday I continue with my full-time job of looking for a job, a process that just keeps reminding me of our economic conditions. I am unable to get some jobs because I am now over-qualified and employers feel that I’d simply be taking a job just to have one and would leave as soon as the market picks up.
So how is it that given 5-10 minutes I could find this guy work in a supermarket stacking shelves or at a shop delivering pizzas then, because the local Woolworths still has a sign out saying they are looking for people…oh, and the unemployment rate today is 5.7%.
It does suck to have to go back to doing base work when you’ve had high ranking positions, but society doesn’t owe you a living. As recently as 3 years ago I worked part time in a bottle shop to help pay the bills despite my whoopdy-do degree, and previous roles in marketing and management, some somewhat senior, because that’s what I had to do (that, and b5media wasn’t making money at the time.)
Michael Gowers: get off your fat, lazy, entitled arse and go and take any job you can get.
Bravo
Hear hear. I've had students knock back jobs because they were waiting for 'the right one.' What happened to a work ethic? I spent my teens working up to four jobs at once – and only one of them a career-oriented one. In the US the minimum wage for working in a retail outlet is $7 an hour. No matter if you're 20 or 40. Think you can raise a family on that? Well some don't think twice anyway, no matter how many letters are after their names. The lucky country? Hmmm.
You make an excellent point by quoting the statistics, however I suspect the individual interviewed hasn't researched them and is (like many people) just relying on gut feel. It *feels* like unbemployment has always been low, since you have to consciouly *try* to think about the times when it wasn't (plus, if you were employed at that time you probably still under-estimate the impact).
Secondly, his comments also reflect the heart of the immigration question – most people who complain about “foreigners taking our jobs” wouldn't take the jobs anyway, or think that such work should pay far more than it does. (Also conveniently ignoring that inflation would be pushed up to pay for the increased wages, should they and their like succeed).
Duncan, give the kid a break. I haven't read his piece but from the way you describe it, he's having a very Gen X experience (if by Gen X experience you mean the Winona Ryder in Reality Bites experience of getting out in the workforce and realising it's not a cakewalk) It sound like his only real mistake here is not realising that we went through it too (because he's too young to know, and presumably hasn't watched Reality Bites). 🙂
At the end there you sound like you're channelling Paxon family-era Ray Martin, it's quite scary.
Well put!
Amber
Poor downtrodden Mr Gowers has a “problem”:
Well, wouldn't he do just that? After all, he's a “professional”.
With “three degrees”.
Anyway, he's still got that “employee mentality”, as I call it. That “a job” is something you expect someone else to create for you, with all the structure and planning and risk, and it's somehow someone else's fault if it hasn't been created for you.
And he has to “scramble” for the computers at Centrelink? You mean he's a “professional” but doesn't have his own computer? Or realise that every public library has free computers too? Or that he might have friends with computers he can borrow — while they're out at work doing something useful?
Mind you, this is from NEWS.com.au, stable-mate of The Punch, where “three degrees” is political dog-whistle code aimed at the working classes, the “battlers”, to flag a wanker.
I'm on the tail end of Gen X, but more importantly my parents were lower middle class. Neither were educated and had that ethic of work means dollars in your pocket. My father is a migrant. I kind of inherited this practicality from them and I think a lot of that has to do with class. Sometimes having wealth and money breeds the kind of ennui and snobbery (in a de Botton kind of way) that is evident in the news.com.au article. When you are wanting to be socially mobile and upward, there's not a great deal of time to whine.
Thanks Duncan, I felt sorry for Gowers but I was considering getting a degree and he has killed the degree idea and you cured me of my sympathy, thanks.
I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m a GenXer ?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢64 and I have never had or expected a secure job ever. I started working in the early 80?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s in Ireland when unemployment was 17%, I always had a job when many CS graduates I know did not, I have no degree, I failed to qualify for a CS college and they were still teaching Cobol at that time which for me appeared so 1960. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve been unemployed a few times for a short time so I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve built the financial reserves for me and my kids to weather years of unemployment if that ever happened. For me 'degree or higher required' technically rules me out of so many jobs that I have to ignore it.
What kicks me most is that following all of this costly education in marketing (I assume) then why does he publish this negative PR when he could use his skills to build his brand and generate demand, market his product, he is his own product (but I admire the journalist who has exploited Gowers brand, nice one).
As for it being harder to find a job when your unemployed, make up a job, work for free one day a week for a small company helping them with their marketing or a charity, that way your employed if asked, just not fully, one problem solved already and that News.com.au article could have been a good news story. Just think of the CEO networking he could have achieved if he had helped Vinnie?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s with the marketing of their Sydney winter sleep-out, I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m sure that there are sales people who would infiltrate Vinnie?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s just for that opportunity, why not?
Overqualified for a role, then delete some qualifications, I know of dad of one of my school mates who had to do that back in the 70's to find work, it's nothing new.
Perhaps Gowers is really a deeper reflection on the education business, they have taken his money but has he the right tools to realise his ROI or worse has the education business washed the tools he needs today from his brain? In the 80?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s there where many unemployed with a college degree, especially in the UK, I think because the BBC liked to give them airtime, usually in disciplines whose usefulness to employment was difficult to communicate, always vague to people like me but eventually they got work. Is the education business failing it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s best clients like Gowers?
Marketing is vital and essential to business growth because it generates demand and enables more efficient sales, Gowers will have a more professional definition I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m sure as he was in the markering business but my point is that I have a lot of respect for what marketers do, it took me time but I finally got it, I think. I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t think that Gowers is getting marketing and this is why. From his article I attempted to locate him, offer some help, advice or support since I live in Sydney. Firstly there was no action implied in the article, no next step or hint to contact him so I Googled him, I found a Michael Gowers on Linkedin, all good your might think. Well that Gowers may be him or may not be, I can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t tell, his connections are at zero and there is no resume to read, no contact details. I wrote an email but never sent it because it had to be a ?¢‚ǨÀúconnect to me?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ email and he could reject me, LinkedIn would then have punished me for spaming. So I lost interest and justified it to myself by thinking that perhaps the story was made up for the newspapers readers to sneer at the professional unemployed, that journalist just impressed me again, that person understands marketing and sales.
I have nothing against the unemployed and I hope Gowers shrugs off his depressive rut, gets motivated and gets hired very soon, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s a terrible situation that any of us could experience in the coming weeks, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s worse for those without education or business skills and with age against them and is socially destructive. I, like most people I think would help any unemployed person in any way that we or able but they have to firstly accept the grief and move on to marketing themselves positively.
Thanks for the post. This guy really offers intellectual snobbery. From this very thing I would not like to have some bussiness with that man. All his lines made me laugh, not only that you underlined. He is just wants to talk large!!!
Being a job snob is nothing to be ashamed of. I'd rather look a bit longer for a better job for my qualifications than to take the first offer I get. That being said, that guy takes it waaaay too far.
I read a smart comment on a webmaster forum, recently:
If you get a degree from a famous University like Cambridge or Harvard, it gets your foot in the door (and into a job, like as not). You also get to meet a lot of privleged people = networking.
Any other college degree and you can queue up like everyone else. It's scarcity and status.
So getting into debt spending $30,000 on a 'media studies' degree from LocalUni is a very bad idea; easy subject, high-supply-low-demand degree, non-status college.
Any course with 'studies' in the name is worthless.
If I had to do it again I'd research correspondence courses from _big name_ Universities in _high demand_ subjects. Otherwise I'd work out how I can achieve multiple, passive streams of income from my current advantages. Your youth is a golden time. If you go to college and get a crap degree and leave at 23 you have 12 years until you're 35 where you can trade on your 'youth'. After that, you better have something else to trade on.
Colleges are businesses. They're touting for your money. They don't care if it's a waste of time for you, job-wise. And working-class people, so proud the first one in their family is going to college, get suckered into the mediocre-degree-machine.
You know, I'm Gen-Y and I know a few people I graduated with who are just the same. One memorable one would send out resumes to everywhere and if they were called in for interviews for 'less desirable' jobs (think retail, food service) they simply wouldn't go. People need to be much less elitist and just thank their lucky stars they can actually be offered a job, because there are a number of people who would kill for that opportunity.
I'm essentially an entry-level HR officer in my company as well as a regular retail worker. I sit in on group interviews and interviews and give my opinion on whether a person fits our team dynamic. This year, I knocked back three uni graduates who said they didn't really care about retail, because they felt like they deserved more money since they had a degree, and retail is basically award wage. Then you get a thirty year old single father who doesn't mind breaking down pallets and shifting displays all night because he's just chuffed that he has a job. We have positions open right now. We've been interviewing for eight weeks. People are unrealistic in their expectations. A Uni degree in Arts does not make you more qualified for retail than the lady who has worked customer care for fifteen years.
I don't kid myself. I'm studying at Uni. But I am so grateful that I have a job that I like, where I fit in, that I'm willing to work my butt off now and hopefully reap the benefits later.
You know, I'm Gen-Y and I know a few people I graduated with who are just the same. One memorable one would send out resumes to everywhere and if they were called in for interviews for 'less desirable' jobs (think retail, food service) they simply wouldn't go. People need to be much less elitist and just thank their lucky stars they can actually be offered a job, because there are a number of people who would kill for that opportunity.
I'm essentially an entry-level HR officer in my company as well as a regular retail worker. I sit in on group interviews and interviews and give my opinion on whether a person fits our team dynamic. This year, I knocked back three uni graduates who said they didn't really care about retail, because they felt like they deserved more money since they had a degree, and retail is basically award wage. Then you get a thirty year old single father who doesn't mind breaking down pallets and shifting displays all night because he's just chuffed that he has a job. We have positions open right now. We've been interviewing for eight weeks. People are unrealistic in their expectations. A Uni degree in Arts does not make you more qualified for retail than the lady who has worked customer care for fifteen years.
I don't kid myself. I'm studying at Uni. But I am so grateful that I have a job that I like, where I fit in, that I'm willing to work my butt off now and hopefully reap the benefits later.
You know, I'm Gen-Y and I know a few people I graduated with who are just the same. One memorable one would send out resumes to everywhere and if they were called in for interviews for 'less desirable' jobs (think retail, food service) they simply wouldn't go. People need to be much less elitist and just thank their lucky stars they can actually be offered a job, because there are a number of people who would kill for that opportunity.
I'm essentially an entry-level HR officer in my company as well as a regular retail worker. I sit in on group interviews and interviews and give my opinion on whether a person fits our team dynamic. This year, I knocked back three uni graduates who said they didn't really care about retail, because they felt like they deserved more money since they had a degree, and retail is basically award wage. Then you get a thirty year old single father who doesn't mind breaking down pallets and shifting displays all night because he's just chuffed that he has a job. We have positions open right now. We've been interviewing for eight weeks. People are unrealistic in their expectations. A Uni degree in Arts does not make you more qualified for retail than the lady who has worked customer care for fifteen years.
I don't kid myself. I'm studying at Uni. But I am so grateful that I have a job that I like, where I fit in, that I'm willing to work my butt off now and hopefully reap the benefits later.