Weird editorial in the Financial Times UK today from Michael Skapinker, which is a neat name. He titles it A dose of austerity for a pampered generation, and is sort of all over the map.

Look, he starts here:

This recession has already hurt people such as over-mortgaged home owners and bank staff. But employers and headhunters predict a real shock for one group: those in their 20s and early 30s who have never experienced an economic downturn before.

Then hits us with this old chestnut:

For the baby boomers’ children, mass unemployment will be something new. The shock will be all the greater because the best educated of them have had it their own way ever since they entered the workplace.

Doom! Gloom! We’re so screwed. If only Generation Y hadn’t been so pampered and demanding. If only we were more like the boomers.

But wait — maybe we’re actually okay? Skapinker continues:

In one sense, today’s younger generation are better prepared for economic hard times than their parents or grandparents: they were not expecting jobs for life.

Nor did they ever think they would have defined benefit pensions, calculated as a proportion of salary at retirement. (One young worker was astonished when I explained the idea to her.)

However pampered Generation Y may have been, switching jobs and reconsidering careers are second nature to them.

It’s always nice when an author refutes his own headline. It just sort of wraps everything up nicely, doesn’t it?

I’ve written about this already. It’s still way too early to really speculate on how the economic downturn will affect Gen Y’s employment prospects. My personal feeling is that if it does hurt them, it’ll be a very short-term period of pain, and then it will end. But regardless: I think claims that Gen Y needs to adjust their attitudes in light of the recession are completely insane.

Here’s why: Generation Y hasn’t demanded greater work/life balance and so-called perks (Skapinker makes reference to Gen Y getting time off work to “train for the triathlon”) solely because they can. We’re not holding jobs ransom, hoping to get a sweet flex-time schedule out of the deal. We ask for these things because we feel that they’re important. They’re not frivolous or expendable and, most importantly at all, they don’t actually affect the quality or amount of work we get done.

Seriously, if your employee can do great work, get things done on time, and also takes two extra hours every morning to train for the triathlon, what does it matter?

Am I missing some logic here? Have I just not taken my dose of austerity yet? Should I really take austerity on an empty stomach?

Photo by Pulpolux !!!. Licensed under Creative Commons.

There’s a lot of hullabaloo in Ontario (and other places, I’m sure) these days about the struggling manufacturing sector. The Toronto Star in particular has been all over it:

While Canada’s economy continues to churn out jobs, some cities are getting left behind.

Amid waves of job cuts in the crucial automotive sector, Oshawa’s unemployment rate suddenly ranks among the highest of major Canadian cities, climbing to 7.6 per cent in April from 6.4 per cent the month before, according to Statistics Canada.

The loss of jobs sucks, of course, but I think cries from politicians for government subsidies to the manufacturing sector (a ‘bail out’) are completely misguiding. Saving manufacturing in the United States and Canada (and most of the developed world) isn’t just unlikely: It’s unfeasible.

We are becoming a service economy, which means that a lot of Generation Y is going to end up working in the so-called ‘service sector’. A lot of people balk at this, because they immediately leap to everyone working at McDonalds or whatever, but the truth of it is that the service sector includes a whole whack of occupations and different styles of work, some of which pay minimum wage (ie. The McJob) and some of which pay millions of dollars a year (ie. a consultant).

The only real solution to job loss as a result of manufacturing is an acceptance that those jobs are gone. Governments should involve themselves only as far as providing opportunities to retrain the former manufacturer workers and create opportunities. The alternative is the equivalent of bailing out the water in a sinking ship — the only thing you can buy yourself is a little bit of time.

This puts Generation Y at an important crossroads. We’re going to experience a major economic shift from secondary to tertiary industry, and it’s not going to be without bumps in the road. We need to be prepared to embrace the new model of the service sector, and kick ass at it.

I love the way she’s able to distill the issue down to a simple truth: time is immaterial when it comes to getting work done. And it’s completely irrelevant when it comes to getting work done well.

My favourite bit:

Ys love to work asynchronously – anytime, anywhere. One said during our research, “What is it with you people and 8:30am?”

Employers are going to struggle with this, partly because it requires a lot more managerial talent to ensure work is getting done when it’s not getting done right in front of you. And that’s a worthy and just concern. It’s also, thankfully, a surmountable one. With enough training and re-culturing, employers in small, medium and large businesses can find a way to make it work.

Unfortunately, I think there are a number of older workers who dislike the idea for another reason altogether. They hear about the changes Gen Y is demanding and they immediately feel resentful. That’s not what it was like for them. They got to work at 8:30 a.m. (or earlier!) every day for YEARS and never once complained. In fact, they were GRATEFUL for it.

This is an attitude that’s going to be hard to change, no matter how many articles like Erickson’s appear in newspapers and online. I predict that, for these employers, it won’t be until the impact of not changing is felt economically that we’ll see real movement.

Photo by H4NUM4N. Licensed under Creative Commons