to think young people are being terribly treated at the moment

[seades]

My brother graduated from a RG uni in the summer and has found getting a graduate job very difficult. At the moment he is interning for free at a PR firm (which is what he wants to do) in the day and working in a bar in the evening and weekends (whenever he can get shifts). Most weeks he is working 60-70 hours a week and in return he can barely afford to eat and pay the rent in his house which is an absolute dump. I was talking to a friend today and she said that this sort of thing is common place and that it teaches young people the value of hard work. AIBU to think that she is talking rubbish, this sort of demands on young people are unacceptable. and that young people are getting a terribly raw deal at the moment

YANBU.

Totally agree with you Op. I know one London City company that pays absolutely nothing to their grads. Company pays their train fare. Its disgusting. 'teaches young people the value hard work' more like taking the piss.

Why does he want a PR job? Lots of graduate jobs out there - he wants to work in a very popular area, so gets paid less. If he wants the wages work elsewhere - always been the same, popular jobs are difficult to get into or poorly paid or both, you makes your descisions and lives with them.

They're getting a massively raw deal

Ludicrous house prices, no free education, lower wages, poverty affects them much more than other age groups

I don't know why they don't revolt tbh - it's much worse than previous revolutionary times

YANBU. I feel very bad for young people leaving education at the moment. It's shit for them and they get all sorts of negativity about being lazy etc when they are in a very, very difficult situation in a crap job market.

It is becoming increasingly commonplace, but I think that's a very worrying development.

i've always thought internship is a bloody con - they could at least pay them the minimum wage for the hours they do.

I've read somewhere recently that the government is looking into unpaid internships and hopefully making them minimum wage at least. Absolute con they are.

Agreed.

It seems that actually most of these internships are illegal. How can it be OK to have someone sign a contract & work set hours, and not pay them?

Carol He's not on a low wage, he's working for free.

It's exploitative and HMRC are apparently looking in to it.

YANBU. I graduated in 2011, also from an RG uni. I'm 25 next month and if I hadn't met my fiance, I would still be living at home with my parents. DP luckily pays our rent and my wage goes towards bills (I work PT, can't find any full-time work and don't drive as can't afford the lessosns). I couldn't afford to move out without DP's help. A full-time wage at my job would barely support me. I could JUST about pay rent but I would struggle to pay heating, electric and food each month on top of that.

The job market is horrible, the housing market is impossible and neither DP or I will ever be able to buy a house unless we win the lottery or there's some miraculous economic turnaround. It's not easy.

YANBU, it should be illegal not to pay anyone over 18 unless you are a registered charity.

Sorry, but a degree does not equate to somehow getting a good job in the field you want with good pay.

Nowadays, companies pay the minimum they can for the skill they need and there is no such thing as a career ladder or job where the company mentors a graduate to any level.

According to Panorama last night, it used to take an average of 3 years to save up the deposit for a house. Now it takes 22!

Things are really shit at the moment.

Im pretty sure it does teach them the truth in this country - that hard work is not valued and that they shouldnt expect a living wage for it

Well, that seems to be the truth we are living with

Agree. MY DS graduated with a high 2:1 in Maths three years ago and was eight months without a sniff of a job. He got lucky in the end because of somenone DH knew.!

And I know the children of friends who have been interns/slaves for the big banks....

We are selling a whole generation down the river....

YANBU OP and i agree with Starballbunny that it shouldbe illegal unless the company is a registered charity.

The way our society sees young people is rubbish generally.

Most young people where I live will never go to university, might not even scrape more than a few gcse s , but that doesn't mean they are inherently antisocial. They are sick of being seen as a problem. They just want to get a job, marry, have children, live in a decent place. But all that is increasingly or of reach for them.

OUT of reach. ..

Are they any worse off than they would have been before university really opened up for people of all classes, i.e. the 1960s? I don't think so. Before then, many of the people at university now would have gone straight into factories and other dead end jobs because the opportunities just aren't there.

I agree that people who got degrees up to about 1995 were living through something of a golden age, but I wouldn't suggest that people graduating now are especially hard done by compared to earlier generations. Unfortunately for them, they are dealing with the fact that too many people now have degrees, which has devalued the qualification. It's a shame but not a tragedy.

The thing is, what's going to happen when the housing market needs to move on in 5-10 years time and there's no one to buy the houses because they can't afford the deposit? What happens when this generation his 60 and have to been housed by the government? What then?

YANBU, OP. DH and I are looking into options for upsizing rather than downsizing as we get older so that we can create an extended family household - not for our benefit, but so that our DDs and their families can afford a roof over their heads. Because they will never have the capital, we are the last generation that do. It's madness.

I'm also going to look into having them study abroad where tuition is much cheaper so that they can get good degrees taught in English but without the mountain of debt at the end.

Governments of the last 30 years have much to answer for, and the current lot is the worst.

NU at all. I'm 26, well educated. Prospects are bleak. Can't afford to learn to drive. Doubt we will ever buy a property.

YANBU. This culture of having to work for free for 2 years before you get so much as a sniff of a job really worries me. My DC's are still little but heaven only knows what it will be like by then - 10 year internships probably.

It's exploitation and it's morally wrong.

But it isn't just graduates .... How many 000's are working because they can't afford to retire or their savings have been decimated.

As sorry as I feel for graduates, the problem isn't just limited to them ... Such a big sandwich generation caught between looking after their young adults and elderly parents with little hope of being financially stable for their old age.

Things are shit for everyone at the moment ...

Its not that they have to work though its the working for free that I have an issue with