Monday 9 March 2009

Work for young people

As the credit crunch begins to bite, more and more people will be fighting for opportunities to work.

We have a dilemma.

Some older people will need to supplement pensions, but more seriously from a social viewpoint:

Young people will need work.

Older people have developed the confidence in themselves from their life of work.

Young people have not.

We need to use every opportunity to create work for these people who have been led to believe that their education will lead to satisfying work.

We need to adjust our thinking to include at least part-time work with good human contact that will be an encouragement and source of self confidence for young people.

If we don't we have a source of destructive energy that will overwhelm us. Alternatively some will turn to drugs with even greater problems.

Older people, we need to come up with ideas to work with this age group and benefit from their enthusiasm for life. Maybe some kind of voluntary work for old and young working together as a stop gap ?

Those of us with business experience could perhaps encourage and work alongside young people to gain the confidence to work part-time for themselves or with others.

Any ideas?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A good piece Geoff and one with which I totally agree.It makes me despondent to meet young men of 20 odd years who have no trade or skills often through no fault of thir own. Good human contact is a good phrase you employ i.e.social skills not learned by many young people because of their lack of contact with people other than their peers.Firms nned more help to take on apprentices and make our young people into useful citizens.