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As someone who was lucky enough to graduate right into the last recession, I highly empathize with the class of 2020, it is going to be rough for everyone, but

As someone who was lucky enough to graduate right into the last recession, I highly empathize with the class of 2020, it is going to be rough for everyone, but especially them. Over a decade later, and only recently have I felt like I was finding my footing career-wise. And now we're all in for another ride. I barely managed to land a job after graduating, made almost no money, got laid off, and the company collapsed shortly thereafter anyway. One thing missing from this article is that often times these layoffs don't happen in a vacuum — Even I, a fresh grad, knew my employer was in trouble — and that a layoff would be coming, which helped blunt the news when the actual layoff happened. This was only possible because my previous employer was transparent about the situation, and I was already pretty deep into my job search by the time the layoff happened. To this day I am appreciative about that, even if the end result was the same, and it took me a few months to land a great gig after that. Graduating into a recession + getting laid off so early in my career has irreversibly changed my risk profile, and I refuse to work with a company that isn't transparent about its going concern.

ardit33 7y ago
Kids that Graduated in 2001-2003 feel the same.... those year sucked. I was a summer intern in 2002, and saw half of my group get laid off. As an intern I was cheap enough to keep around, until the economy improved in late 2003, when I got a full time offer.... 2004-2007 were good, then bamn another recession... then this.... The way money interests/lobbyist are running the economy and country, It is almost given that every 10 years there will be a major recession. While this time it was a virus triggering it, the economy has been over-heated for a while, and the crazy thing is that the government was running crazy deficits in a hot economy, instead of saving for the long term. (i.e. the feds and the goverment, have been 'juicing up' the economy for short term re-election goals).
- tyre 7y ago
  To the latter criticism, this has nothing to do with governments pumping up stocks. It’s a pandemic that could put a third of workers out of jobs because everything is shutting down and the economy is coming to a halt. It’s not like 2008 when complex financial products f—ed it all up. (Yes there are still bad policies, yes there is corruption, yes, yes etc etc etc but the point is that this isn’t “part of the boom and bust cycle.”)
  - Judgmentality 7y ago
    You have valid points, but the boom and bust just exacerbates an already bad situation by compounding the natural disaster with a market primed to fall already. So it took a bad situation, and made it even worse. As to all how this is going to play out, who knows? I'm not as optimistic as others that it's just going to be a couple months and suddenly everything is back to normal.
  - xapata 7y ago
    We could have been like Taiwan and Japan. Seems like a mask mandate and diligent testing with quarantine of infected only is sufficient. Would have saved a lot of headache. And lives.
    - rusticpenn 7y ago
      I heard the opposite about Japan. Are they really doing exhaustive testing?
      - xapata 7y ago
        It's hard to know which sources to believe these days.
biztos 7y ago
I graduated in 1993, and had to do some pretty demeaning work to make rent before landing a decent Temp job that got me started towards a career. Felt like I was finally in my element and ready for the big time Internet challenges by... 2001. I was busted by the bust and didn't get back on track really until 2007, fortunately in a niche that didn't suffer much from the 2008 meltdown. This might be just another phase of the cycle, though I admit it feels different this time, and not just because of the economic impact. (Also, OT but: in 1993 San Francisco was cheap, friendly, pretty mellow and full of creative people. That made being broke a lot more tolerable. I wouldn't want to be 1993-me in 2020-SF.)
twomoretime 7y ago
Maybe this time we will finally reconsider the multigenerational push to get literally everyone into college. I think such sentiment has been increasingly brewing over the last couple years.

ardit33 7y ago

Kids that Graduated in 2001-2003 feel the same.... those year sucked. I was a summer intern in 2002, and saw half of my group get laid off. As an intern I was cheap enough to keep around, until the economy improved in late 2003, when I got a full time offer.... 2004-2007 were good, then bamn another recession... then this.... The way money interests/lobbyist are running the economy and country, It is almost given that every 10 years there will be a major recession. While this time it was a virus triggering it, the economy has been over-heated for a while, and the crazy thing is that the government was running crazy deficits in a hot economy, instead of saving for the long term. (i.e. the feds and the goverment, have been 'juicing up' the economy for short term re-election goals).

tyre 7y ago
To the latter criticism, this has nothing to do with governments pumping up stocks. It’s a pandemic that could put a third of workers out of jobs because everything is shutting down and the economy is coming to a halt. It’s not like 2008 when complex financial products f—ed it all up. (Yes there are still bad policies, yes there is corruption, yes, yes etc etc etc but the point is that this isn’t “part of the boom and bust cycle.”)
- Judgmentality 7y ago
  You have valid points, but the boom and bust just exacerbates an already bad situation by compounding the natural disaster with a market primed to fall already. So it took a bad situation, and made it even worse. As to all how this is going to play out, who knows? I'm not as optimistic as others that it's just going to be a couple months and suddenly everything is back to normal.
- xapata 7y ago
  We could have been like Taiwan and Japan. Seems like a mask mandate and diligent testing with quarantine of infected only is sufficient. Would have saved a lot of headache. And lives.
  - rusticpenn 7y ago
    I heard the opposite about Japan. Are they really doing exhaustive testing?
    - xapata 7y ago
      It's hard to know which sources to believe these days.

biztos 7y ago

I graduated in 1993, and had to do some pretty demeaning work to make rent before landing a decent Temp job that got me started towards a career. Felt like I was finally in my element and ready for the big time Internet challenges by... 2001. I was busted by the bust and didn't get back on track really until 2007, fortunately in a niche that didn't suffer much from the 2008 meltdown. This might be just another phase of the cycle, though I admit it feels different this time, and not just because of the economic impact. (Also, OT but: in 1993 San Francisco was cheap, friendly, pretty mellow and full of creative people. That made being broke a lot more tolerable. I wouldn't want to be 1993-me in 2020-SF.)

twomoretime 7y ago

Maybe this time we will finally reconsider the multigenerational push to get literally everyone into college. I think such sentiment has been increasingly brewing over the last couple years.