'Older generations have eaten younger ones'

"In many countries the young are being crushed by a gerontocracy of older workers who appear determined to cling to the better jobs as long as possible and then, when they do retire, demand impossibly rich private and public pensions that the younger generation will be forced to shoulder."

"The older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones," former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato said.

You Boomers who are in good health and making good money want to keep working until you're 80, and then collect every dime you're entitled to under Social Security.
Whereas we in Gens X and Y will have to work till we're 80 (or dead) just to survive.

But here's a solution, which I have long advocated, as opposed to the false solutions of more same-old technical schools or even more STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) graduates in the U.S.: apprenticeships, which by definition match skills training to the needs of markets:

"These days there's a newfound appreciation for an ancient work arrangement, the apprenticeship, because it greases the transition from learning to doing. Germany and Austria experienced milder youth unemployment in the global downturn partly because of blue-collar apprenticeship programs."

If you Boomers would teach some youngins what you know, you could do the country some good, instead of hoarding all the jobs while demanding Social Security and Medicare payouts!


The Youth Unemployment Bomb
From Cairo to London to Brooklyn, too many young people are jobless and disaffected. Inside the global effort to put the next generation to work
By Peter Coy
February 2, 2011 Bloomberg Businessweek

URL: http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/07_52/b4064058743638.htm