I think people are entitled to whine a bit. My anecdotal evidence suggests times are hard (in Europe at least). I am at my most qualified, experienced and mobi

I think people are entitled to whine a bit. My anecdotal evidence suggests times are hard (in Europe at least). I am at my most qualified, experienced and mobile but have never had the difficulty I have now getting work. I am looking at jobs which earn below what I was earning in 2005. I was job hunting in the early 90s recession and the dot-com burst but have never experienced this lack of response when putting my CV forward for work. I have had 1 interview in 5 months and 1 "dear john, your not suitable email". Apart from that - silence. I can imagine what new graduates are going through. If they aren't coming from a top University then they are going to have to endure the challenges of long term unemployment before starting on the career that they have invested significant time and money on. The economic problem was not caused by this generation of graduates. However, they are feeling the full brunt of its effects. Older people are not going to understand, because most of them haven't experienced anything like this in IT.