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I don't know where you live, but here in the UK it's harder and harder for children of the post-Boomer generations to get the kind of "job for life" that gave s
by zeemonkee 16y ago
I don't know where you live, but here in the UK it's harder and harder for children of the post-Boomer generations to get the kind of "job for life" that gave such returns.
Your parents were lucky to have lived through a time of cheap/free education, steady growth in the economy, and relatively cheap house prices when they were starting out. With good luck they will get a good pension, paid (in your father's case) by earmarked taxpayer largesse.
For the rest of us, we'll start our employment mired in student debt, higher taxes from paying for Boomer retirees, property prices forever beyond our reach, and an economy so bad that young people regard un- or low-paid slavery as a privilege (sorry, "internships").
The government here is cutting back across the board, and banks and other big companies cutting staff. The "job for life" is gone for us, as a generation.
So, what's riskier - starting out on your own, with the chance to make it big, or struggle for years, or decades, on low-paid, short-term employment ?
- dschobel 16y agoWhy is the employment short-term? Isn't the UK like most of Western Europe in that it's quite hard to fire someone (and then you have to give months and months of severance if you do)?
- zeemonkee 16y agoYou have short-term (max 6 month) contracts. You don't need to fire someone when their contract ends.
- timclark 16y agoIt is harder to fire someone in Europe than in the US. However, in the UK severance pay is tax free but the legal minimum that is required by your employer is quite low, some employment contracts may specify better redundancy terms but employers don't have to be that generous.
- nkassis 16y agoWait you mean they have to pay severance? That's not required at all in the US. Unless your contract says so, when fired you get nothing.
- timthorn 16y agoOnly when made redundant. There's no mandatory payment for dismissal. However, it's common for people to leave "by mutual consent" - the employer pays off the employee to leave quickly, rather than go through the formal procedure of establishing incompetence.
- DeusExMachina 16y agoI can totally second this adding that the UK and in general northern countries in Europe have even a better situation than southern ones. I come from Italy and there the situation is far direr. Unemployment is stellar, wages are the lowest in Europe, people are losing jobs like falling flies and those who get it usually do not have any stability in the long run.
- jdminhbg 16y agoNative English speaker tip -- 'stellar' means 'good' rather than 'high,' despite the star connotation.
- _delirium 16y agoThough, strangely enough, "astronomical" does mean what he was going for, with the same metaphor.
- cynicalkane 16y agoIt's not the same metaphor. The idea of a large number being "astronomical" comes from astronomy being the science that uses the largest numbers and units.
- DeusExMachina 16y agoOh, thank you. We have the same word in italian, and we can use it with this meaning. Sometimes I make the mistake to assume that meta-meanings apply cross language as well.
- nkohari 16y agoFor what it's worth, it's the same in the US, except from what I understand about UK law, it's much easier to be fired in the US.