Step two: Discover you actually hate all professions associated with your qualifications, or that your qualifications are useless in the job market and your career goals were utterly unrealistic
Step three: Mooch at home unwilling to retrain or do something menial, or with no relevance to your skill set to tide you over whilst you find something better
Step four, establish your new NEET identity and blame society, everyone and everything but yourself for your circumstance and the lack of a suitable high paying job served on a platter
I say this as someone that hasn't completed any education beyond GCSE level (I guess that's college in the US), and has never had any trouble finding paid work several within 10 days and something that I want to do within 60 days of that. I've worked throughout Europe, the UK and Southern Africa.
Apologies for the lack of empathy here, but it really isn't that hard.
Just be prepared to go anywhere and do anything
Ok without getting defensive about the salient subtext, I see your point; but I think that argument is a non-starter unless you mean specifically in the context of physical care, which can't possibly apply to the cited number of young people.
After all without the financial means and independence how can you care and provide for anyone let alone yourself?
In my own context, sure - at least initially I had only myself to care about, so I won't argue that :)
Not everyone can easily handle the cultural change from moving, or have strong social ties to friends and family. If a person has kids, it's an order of magnitude more difficult to move. Some people are quite socially adaptable, some are well-prepared by their upbringing to have the skills to be comfortable in changing social situations. Not to say that it's easy for them, but easier - it's still quite a challenge.
And again, doing something like this on an individual level is easy, because the status quo doesn't change overall. But on a demographic level, where are all the unemployed people going to move to? Another country? That other country also has unemployed people.
Similarly, if you don't have skills in demand by employers, you're hard to hire, and hence hard to get more skills valued by employers - moving to a new location simply moves you to a new pool of unskilled labour.
I hadn't considered that - my own experience (obviously) colours my view, at least when younger I was eager to see new places, meet new challenges and new people.
That did lead to losing touch with almost all my school-era friends at least initially - though in some ways it also taught me who were the best friends amongst them :) They're the ones you meet after a decade apart and can pretty much pick up where you left off.
I would imagine because not many people have tried both. I did. A few years back I moved myself to a different country. It took me one suitcase, hand luggage and buying a few things on the other side. I'm moving again now, but this time with a pregnant wife. And I see that in a few years even Google will not be able to make worthwhile once again.
Apologies for the lack of empathy here, but it really isn't that hard. Just be prepared to go anywhere and do anything
It's not hard at the individual level, but it is hard at the demographic level, if the jobs en masse aren't there. More people can start businesses, sure, but it's a complex picture that's not so easy to explain away.
I've worked in two factories, striping down old machines, unloading trucks, overnight shifts at gas stations where you're just as likely to get shot as you are to make it through the night. I've cleaned up blood, shit, vomit. I nearly had my hand torn off in an industrial machine. I worked hard because I thought that was the right thing to do. And all I ever got for it was a barely livable wage (I'm talking eating flour mixed with chicken broth and being damned excited about it because we could pay the power bill). I also learned that working that kind of job offers no security, no mobility, and is only barely worth doing. I'm not and have never been above physical labor. But in today's society, in the US, it's really hard to live a healthy life that way.
Certainly, I didn't mean to imply a permanence, only that doing something is usually better than nothing. I've always found employers infinitely more receptive to a person with a demonstrable work ethic, and far less sympathetic to the NEET or apathetic job seeker.
It's an interesting cycle. Lots of people from my home town have never had any sort of technical work and thus the people in my age group were sort of compelled toward the non technical also. So when you're 16 and you try to get your first job at the pharmaceutical factory they will ask you what kind of skills you have. If you have technical skills then the manager assumes that you will leave when something else comes along and so won't hire you. So you lie about it and say you're a hard worker etc. Later, you go to your first IT interview and they ask about previous jobs. Depending in the interviewer they will be glad that you've had a physical job or they will assume that you're not really all that skilled and be cautious in hiring you. Either way, it's difficult in many small towns to get better and better jobs. And stagnation isn't much better than being unemployed in the first place. And as you said, it's helpful if you can move to somewhere else. But lots of young people feel responsible for their families and want to try to contribute financially and emotionally. And it's difficult to do that from too far away. In my case, my wife and I have almost no attachment to any particular place, and as such we've both been fortunate in the job market. But others find it very difficult to let go of home.
Step two: Discover you actually hate all professions associated with your qualifications, or that your qualifications are useless in the job market and your career goals were utterly unrealistic
Step three: Mooch at home unwilling to retrain or do something menial, or with no relevance to your skill set to tide you over whilst you find something better
Step four, establish your new NEET identity and blame society, everyone and everything but yourself for your circumstance and the lack of a suitable high paying job served on a platter
I say this as someone that hasn't completed any education beyond GCSE level (I guess that's college in the US), and has never had any trouble finding paid work several within 10 days and something that I want to do within 60 days of that. I've worked throughout Europe, the UK and Southern Africa.
Apologies for the lack of empathy here, but it really isn't that hard. Just be prepared to go anywhere and do anything