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hybridracer said:

I have 3 acres of parkland, orchard and soft fruit that is more than enough for me.
It is not only the young who are stuck on social media. We desperately need volunteers for our railway and, bar a very few exceptions, everyone seems to be on facebook etc looking/commenting instead of coming to help.

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It's an illness alright!

robs ss said:

It's an illness alright!

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Yup. Certainly ain’t jus’ young uns !

johnm said:

You know this really does seem to be a continued grip amongst us old buggers.

But my experience does not match this at all.

I don't know what counts as young but my kids and their friends work crazy hours. Maybe they don't count as kids but through high school uni and then working up to their present mid late 30s they really did work. I would not like to compete with them.

For example daughter starts at 8 am and works through to 6:30 7 pm most nights and regularly half a day on weekends. Sons are the same with the younger son still pulling all nighters when projects demand. His job involves teams all around the world and if necessary he is up through the night to talk to India or Europe or the US. Jobs are engineer , lawyer and infrastructure private equity.

Their friends are similar , working interesting and demanding jobs all around the world. Archaeology, aerospace, genetics, pilots, military aircrew, accountants, lawyers, farming, construction , pharmacy etc etc. The common factor seems to be a competitive spirit. Wanting to do interesting stuff.

If you don't know young people like these then your hanging out in the wrong crowd. Believe you me. These kids kick butt.

I will admit to being a bit worried however. They work too hard and families and homelife suffers. Many / most do not have children. My youngest is taking the active decision to step back to have a family.

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Yes, it’s very easy to just blame ‘gen z’ or whichever gen it currently is!

I’m only 58, so still a young un on here I guess.

We have two MASSIVE forces currently against the young here:

First is a disastrous shortage of entry level jobs for the young. Just ask any parent of teenagers, it really is bad. This has been getting bad for a while but recent govt policies have really tipped it over a critical edge.

Second, the benefits system has massively reduced the need to work. There were plenty of lads who happily claimed the dole when I were a lad, the benefits on offer these days make the dole from then look like poverty money.

So, we have made it hugely difficult for the young to get work whilst simultaneously throwing benefits at them which make work seem far less needed.

And we wonder why youth unemployment is around 15% ish currently. I am only surprised it’s not higher, but I suggest it’s only going to climb.

As my teenagers would say… DUH !!

"Second, the benefits system has massively reduced the need to work. There were plenty of lads who happily claimed the dole when I were a lad, the benefits on offer these days make the dole from then look like poverty money."


This.


And, offshoring manufacturing to ever cheaper corners of the planet.

Every time I see the reminder.... "yup, that's 1000 more jobs gone"

Fast Eddie said:

Yes, it’s very easy to just blame ‘gen z’ or whichever gen it currently is!

I’m only 58, so still a young un on here I guess.

We have two MASSIVE forces currently against the young here:

First is a disastrous shortage of entry level jobs for the young. Just ask any parent of teenagers, it really is bad. This has been getting bad for a while but recent govt policies have really tipped it over a critical edge.

Second, the benefits system has massively reduced the need to work. There were plenty of lads who happily claimed the dole when I were a lad, the benefits on offer these days make the dole from then look like poverty money.

So, we have made it hugely difficult for the young to get work whilst simultaneously throwing benefits at them which make work seem far less needed.

And we wonder why youth unemployment is around 15% ish currently. I am only surprised it’s not higher, but I suggest it’s only going to climb.

As my teenagers would say… DUH !!

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One of the problems is we used to take on 16 year olds
Now they have to be 18 to use power tools
The difference between a 16 -18 is huge when it comes to training
18 year olds will not listen because they are men or they think they are

baz said:

One of the problems is we used to take on 16 year olds
Now they have to be 18 to use power tools
The difference between a 16 -18 is huge when it comes to training
18 year olds will not listen because they are men or they think they are

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That, and they don't NEED the job… They've been conditioned to believe it is someone else's responsibility to keep a roof over their head and food in their belly.

The good young ones know you have to work hard to get a head these days, the cost of housing and starting a family has got to the stage both partners have to work hard to get started and home ownership is getting out of hand for most, same with training, our leaders have sold off our or made it hard to start a business and training young ones to do work that is needed, our Tec colleges are now run like a business and charging high prices to get the training, it's all about making profits and now our country is running short of new trades people so the answer from the powers to be is bring more trained people into our country.
It's coming to a point now it biting them on their arses because the cost of training our own kids has gone through the roof, I know this well as I worked at a Tec College (TAFE) for 31 years and seen the down fall of running a Tec College as a business and to make a profit and now we have a shortage of trained young people to come into the trades side of work.
Everything slows down when we don't have the trades people to do the work, housing market slows down because we don't have the tradesmen to build, cost of building supplies has gone through the roof, which on top of that house prices go up and out of reach for normal people who want to start a family and the trades people who are working hard their wages are too high.
Then you get the rip off tradesmen who over charge for simple jobs, ripping normal people off, I seen it happen as one day needed my gas hot water system needed a new seal installed the gas fitter didn't notice I was watching him, he spent 45 mins taking phone calls or making a phone call, took him less than 10 mins to replace the seal and he had the hide to charge me $300 labour on top of his call out fees to do the job for 10mins work till I told him so, he ended up dropping the $300 labour charge to $70, there are a lot of cowboys out there chasing big money for little work, and the old people are treated as, come in sucker and replacing things that don't need to be replaced.
It's just the way things have gone and a lot of major businesses have gone OS because our wages are too high and then what we get back is inferior workmanship because of cheap untrained labour from 3rd world countries.
Well that is my opinion, why I do most of my own work around the house, but sometimes you need to pay a tradesman to do the job and that's if you can find a good one.

hybridracer said:

I have 3 acres of parkland, orchard and soft fruit that is more than enough for me.
It is not only the young who are stuck on social media. We desperately need volunteers for our railway and, bar a very few exceptions, everyone seems to be on facebook etc looking/commenting instead of coming to help.

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Your railway seems to be exactly the way for young guys to get a foot in the door. Since I wrote my post I have been asking young people I know, mostly 20s how they got started. And volunteering, social groups, door knocking were all ways of getting known. One young Maori guy was good at sport and carried bags at a local golf course. Meeting the older guys there got him his plumbing apprenticeship. Young quantity surveyor cadet got her job by door knocking where she now works. Not just applying online. Showing willing to people who own or work at companies.