5 ms·

After the boomers, meet the children dubbed 'baby losers'

22 points by revorad 19y ago

hugh 19y ago
Not to worry, there are still some good jobs in Europe. Like, say, being a journalist for the Guardian. You can spend a week travelling around Europe, collect a few quotes from people who feel like whining about their financial situation, throw in a few fairly-meaningless numbers (Spain's government cut its growth forecast slightly!) and call it an article. One interesting fact though: he had trouble finding a German with much to complain about. The best he could do was some guy on a perfectly reasonable salary of 2700 a month (about $US50K a year) in Berlin who admits his money is okay but isn't doing what he "dreamed" of doing. Yeah, you and everyone else with a degree in history and photography, buddy.
- tptacek 19y ago
  Where in Germany? $50k/yr in San Francisco or New York metro is what McDonalds store managers make.
  - hugh 19y ago
    Berlin, which is actually one of the cheaper cities in Germany (at least it was two years ago when I was looking at moving there). It's still not great money, but it's hardly terrible.
    - timr 19y ago
      Can't speak for Berlin, but I was just in a few different smaller towns in Germany, and prices for most things were (in Euros) about equivalent to what they are in USD. My friends who live in Cologne confirmed my observation. For example, my friend was paying about 1300 Euros for an apartment that would probably go for about 1300 USD where I live. Shoes were roughly 100 Euro per pair, Bread was 3-5 Euro for a loaf, etc. Assuming that the greater social services in Germany are largely offset by their significantly higher tax rates, someone with a 32k Euro job is getting by, but not likely saving very much...unless they're somehow buying everything they need in the US (and hence at a 60% discount, thanks to the exchange rate).
      - tptacek 19y ago
        I'm not sure I understand: if your friend pays 1300EU for an apartment that goes for 1300USD, he's paying 150% of what you pay.
        timr 19y ago
        If he earned in USD, and paid in Euros, or vice-versa, then yes. But he's European, so he earns in Euros and pays in Euros. The exchange rate between the currencies isn't relevant. Point is, 1 Euro appears to have about the same relative earning power (in Germany) as 1 USD has in the US (where I live, anyway). The comparison isn't perfect, but it's good enough to be able to make an estimate of lifestyle, based on salary in whichever currency. EU citizens aren't all magically richer than US citizens because they earn in Euros.
  - petercooper 19y ago
    I might be totally wrong (and if I am, I apologize!) but I sense you're implying $50k is low because it's what a mere McDonald's manager makes? If so, McDonald's outlet managers might not seem culturally important or as well qualified as historians, architects, and the like, but in terms of raw capitalism, they provide a lot more value and have control over a real cash cow and provider to the economy. This is why their salaries are pretty good compared to the minions below them. $50k/yr is a good salary on almost any part of the planet. It's the median personal salary in the United Kingdom, for instance.
    - baha_man 19y ago
      "On Friday night, Lorenzo, 35, was on a train heading to work a nightshift for a major American sales website's Berlin branch." This part of the article is pretty useless, it doesn't actually tell us what his job is. It sounds like it's not related to his qualifications as a historian/photographer (whatever they are, again there are no details), in which case you would expect his pay to be lower than if he had relevant skills. On the other hand, if it's a white-collar job, he's working nights regularly, and only getting the $50,000 salary, this would be low pay.
    - tptacek 19y ago
      Teachers provide vast amounts of value, but supply greatly exceeds demand, and therefore they make less than people with far less relevant jobs.
  - mynameishere 19y ago
    Well, boo-urns for Frisco. I would say that in most of Germany 50K would be enough. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gm.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... GDP - per capita (PPP): $34,400 (2007 est.)
    - neilc 19y ago
      GDP per capita has very little to do with the average income of the individuals in a country.
      - vitaminj 19y ago
        GDP per capita overstates the average income (because it's skewed by high income earners), which only reinforces mynameishere's point that 50k is a decent wage in Germany.
        smanek 19y ago
        As you suspect, we get a similar picture when looking at that in conjunction with the Gini coefficient and median income (and normalizing everything with PPP). For example, Germany has an extremely low Gini of 28.3 (compare to the US at 47), and a relatively low median income of ~ $25K. This suggests that people are, uniformly, relatively poor (compared to counties like the US and UK). So, yes. $50K there would be pretty good.
- ojbyrne 19y ago
  It's a fairly standard theory (search for "Boom, Bust and Echo") that the generation after the baby boomers are hurt by demographics - compared to not just the generation before, but also the generation after, they suffer from lower salaries, less job prospects, and less satisfying careers overall. But as soon as they mentioned someone 24 years old - part of the "echo" generation who, in general, can expect the exact opposite - I decided they were just making shit up.
  - timr 19y ago
    So, you've decided that generational phenomena are so exact that a difference of six years (30 vs 24) means that the reporter was lying?
- abstractwater 19y ago
  Before moving to Silicon Valley 5 years ago, I grew up and worked in Italy and I confirm those numbers. The only employment available in Italy right now is basically temp contracting paid a fraction of the relative full time position, with no job security. These "precarious" employees are often Master's Degree holders forced to accept those shitty jobs because, well, they are the only one available -- either that or leave the country, as many do. It you're thinking "why don't those smart people start a business then?", suffice it to say the government makes it extremely complicated. There's a lot of bureaucracy involved that is a big deterrent for many.
- enris 19y ago
  In Finland, we actually have some shortage of skilled employees, especially in construction but also in tech. Even Microsoft and couple of other companies started a project to post educate 1000 applied science graduates and agreed to offer jobs for them. In tech, entry level salaries are about $37-50k, senior positions from $55k>. Country average salary is about 37k. Of course that isn't the whole story. Cost of living is and taxation is very high. Just recently there was a article stating that apartment in Helsinki is more expensive than apartment from Manhattan.
- Tichy 19y ago
  Yeah, what all the replies to this miss is that history and photography was never a degree you would expect to earn much money with. Neither is architecture (another example mentioned in the article). Also, New York is WAY more expensive than Berlin. I think I remember paying 10$ for two pounds of potatoes in NY (and that was years ago). A coffee at Starbucks was like 8$ - wtf???
- dpapathanasiou 19y ago
  It seems to vary by country; this is an example of what the article was talking about: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL2951163420070605?feedType=RSS&pageNumber=1 http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL295116342...
timr 19y ago
I don't think this phenomenon is limited to Europe. I'm 31, I have an advanced degree in a highly technical field, and it's unlikely that I'm going to earn enough money to afford to buy a home (w/o ridiculous leverage) in the places where I can find work in my field. When my parents were my age, they had two children, a house and two cars on a single electrical engineer's income. There's no way that's possible today.
- trevelyan 19y ago
  It is the cost of housing that is the real problem.
  - timr 19y ago
    Largely agreed. Cost of energy is bad too, though, and that's driving increases for nearly everything else.
- timnic 19y ago
  I was watching a video by Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School on the topic the other day. The gist of it is (I think) basically that housing and healthcare are taking up most of the money of the middle class. In the 1970-ties a single earner could bring in enough money to support the whole family. Now in the middle class both parents have to work, which doubles the financial risk for the family if one of them (for example) looses a job. If you are interested: the link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
viergroupie 19y ago
>There is a political swing towards what were once considered the ideas of the political left such as minimum wages, benefits and so on,' said Holgar Schaefer, labour economist at the Cologne Institute of Economics. 'It is a tendency that is only likely to become more obvious in coming years.' Uhhh..isn't tight regulation of the economy what fucked up their job markets in the first place?

22 points by revorad 19y ago

hugh 19y ago

Not to worry, there are still some good jobs in Europe. Like, say, being a journalist for the Guardian. You can spend a week travelling around Europe, collect a few quotes from people who feel like whining about their financial situation, throw in a few fairly-meaningless numbers (Spain's government cut its growth forecast slightly!) and call it an article. One interesting fact though: he had trouble finding a German with much to complain about. The best he could do was some guy on a perfectly reasonable salary of 2700 a month (about $US50K a year) in Berlin who admits his money is okay but isn't doing what he "dreamed" of doing. Yeah, you and everyone else with a degree in history and photography, buddy.

tptacek 19y ago
Where in Germany? $50k/yr in San Francisco or New York metro is what McDonalds store managers make.
- hugh 19y ago
  Berlin, which is actually one of the cheaper cities in Germany (at least it was two years ago when I was looking at moving there). It's still not great money, but it's hardly terrible.
  - timr 19y ago
    Can't speak for Berlin, but I was just in a few different smaller towns in Germany, and prices for most things were (in Euros) about equivalent to what they are in USD. My friends who live in Cologne confirmed my observation. For example, my friend was paying about 1300 Euros for an apartment that would probably go for about 1300 USD where I live. Shoes were roughly 100 Euro per pair, Bread was 3-5 Euro for a loaf, etc. Assuming that the greater social services in Germany are largely offset by their significantly higher tax rates, someone with a 32k Euro job is getting by, but not likely saving very much...unless they're somehow buying everything they need in the US (and hence at a 60% discount, thanks to the exchange rate).
    - tptacek 19y ago
      I'm not sure I understand: if your friend pays 1300EU for an apartment that goes for 1300USD, he's paying 150% of what you pay.
      - timr 19y ago
        If he earned in USD, and paid in Euros, or vice-versa, then yes. But he's European, so he earns in Euros and pays in Euros. The exchange rate between the currencies isn't relevant. Point is, 1 Euro appears to have about the same relative earning power (in Germany) as 1 USD has in the US (where I live, anyway). The comparison isn't perfect, but it's good enough to be able to make an estimate of lifestyle, based on salary in whichever currency. EU citizens aren't all magically richer than US citizens because they earn in Euros.
- petercooper 19y ago
  I might be totally wrong (and if I am, I apologize!) but I sense you're implying $50k is low because it's what a mere McDonald's manager makes? If so, McDonald's outlet managers might not seem culturally important or as well qualified as historians, architects, and the like, but in terms of raw capitalism, they provide a lot more value and have control over a real cash cow and provider to the economy. This is why their salaries are pretty good compared to the minions below them. $50k/yr is a good salary on almost any part of the planet. It's the median personal salary in the United Kingdom, for instance.
  - baha_man 19y ago
    "On Friday night, Lorenzo, 35, was on a train heading to work a nightshift for a major American sales website's Berlin branch." This part of the article is pretty useless, it doesn't actually tell us what his job is. It sounds like it's not related to his qualifications as a historian/photographer (whatever they are, again there are no details), in which case you would expect his pay to be lower than if he had relevant skills. On the other hand, if it's a white-collar job, he's working nights regularly, and only getting the $50,000 salary, this would be low pay.
  - tptacek 19y ago
    Teachers provide vast amounts of value, but supply greatly exceeds demand, and therefore they make less than people with far less relevant jobs.
- mynameishere 19y ago
  Well, boo-urns for Frisco. I would say that in most of Germany 50K would be enough. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gm.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... GDP - per capita (PPP): $34,400 (2007 est.)
  - neilc 19y ago
    GDP per capita has very little to do with the average income of the individuals in a country.
    - vitaminj 19y ago
      GDP per capita overstates the average income (because it's skewed by high income earners), which only reinforces mynameishere's point that 50k is a decent wage in Germany.
      - smanek 19y ago
        As you suspect, we get a similar picture when looking at that in conjunction with the Gini coefficient and median income (and normalizing everything with PPP). For example, Germany has an extremely low Gini of 28.3 (compare to the US at 47), and a relatively low median income of ~ $25K. This suggests that people are, uniformly, relatively poor (compared to counties like the US and UK). So, yes. $50K there would be pretty good.
ojbyrne 19y ago
It's a fairly standard theory (search for "Boom, Bust and Echo") that the generation after the baby boomers are hurt by demographics - compared to not just the generation before, but also the generation after, they suffer from lower salaries, less job prospects, and less satisfying careers overall. But as soon as they mentioned someone 24 years old - part of the "echo" generation who, in general, can expect the exact opposite - I decided they were just making shit up.
- timr 19y ago
  So, you've decided that generational phenomena are so exact that a difference of six years (30 vs 24) means that the reporter was lying?
abstractwater 19y ago
Before moving to Silicon Valley 5 years ago, I grew up and worked in Italy and I confirm those numbers. The only employment available in Italy right now is basically temp contracting paid a fraction of the relative full time position, with no job security. These "precarious" employees are often Master's Degree holders forced to accept those shitty jobs because, well, they are the only one available -- either that or leave the country, as many do. It you're thinking "why don't those smart people start a business then?", suffice it to say the government makes it extremely complicated. There's a lot of bureaucracy involved that is a big deterrent for many.
enris 19y ago
In Finland, we actually have some shortage of skilled employees, especially in construction but also in tech. Even Microsoft and couple of other companies started a project to post educate 1000 applied science graduates and agreed to offer jobs for them. In tech, entry level salaries are about $37-50k, senior positions from $55k>. Country average salary is about 37k. Of course that isn't the whole story. Cost of living is and taxation is very high. Just recently there was a article stating that apartment in Helsinki is more expensive than apartment from Manhattan.
Tichy 19y ago
Yeah, what all the replies to this miss is that history and photography was never a degree you would expect to earn much money with. Neither is architecture (another example mentioned in the article). Also, New York is WAY more expensive than Berlin. I think I remember paying 10$ for two pounds of potatoes in NY (and that was years ago). A coffee at Starbucks was like 8$ - wtf???
dpapathanasiou 19y ago
It seems to vary by country; this is an example of what the article was talking about: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL2951163420070605?feedType=RSS&pageNumber=1 http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL295116342...

timr 19y ago

I don't think this phenomenon is limited to Europe. I'm 31, I have an advanced degree in a highly technical field, and it's unlikely that I'm going to earn enough money to afford to buy a home (w/o ridiculous leverage) in the places where I can find work in my field. When my parents were my age, they had two children, a house and two cars on a single electrical engineer's income. There's no way that's possible today.

trevelyan 19y ago
It is the cost of housing that is the real problem.
- timr 19y ago
  Largely agreed. Cost of energy is bad too, though, and that's driving increases for nearly everything else.
timnic 19y ago
I was watching a video by Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School on the topic the other day. The gist of it is (I think) basically that housing and healthcare are taking up most of the money of the middle class. In the 1970-ties a single earner could bring in enough money to support the whole family. Now in the middle class both parents have to work, which doubles the financial risk for the family if one of them (for example) looses a job. If you are interested: the link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

viergroupie 19y ago

>There is a political swing towards what were once considered the ideas of the political left such as minimum wages, benefits and so on,' said Holgar Schaefer, labour economist at the Cologne Institute of Economics. 'It is a tendency that is only likely to become more obvious in coming years.' Uhhh..isn't tight regulation of the economy what fucked up their job markets in the first place?