Do people understand that many of us have lived through high periods of unemployment?

[marymarkle]

There are major issues for young people today with zero hour contracts and high housing costs. But I do get a bit fed up with comments that state that life is much harder for young people now that ever before.

I left school during the Thatcher year. Unemployment was very high and outside London whole communities were decimated by this, I still remember a classmate just before we left coming into school excited because they had secured a job in a factory. Jobs were very hard to get, reaching a peak of 10.8% unemployed in the early 1980's, and that was with them fidding the unemployment figures. And there was no MW, wages were often very very low. Yes house prices were cheaper, but that only benefited those already doing well.

I remember it as a very grim time in our country. While the City was booming and people earned massive bonuses, street homelessness soared, use of illegal drugs soared, as did crime. And many adults in their 50s who lost jobs during this time, never worked again. It was a grim time economically to be young.

Not sure what your point is. Are people not allowed to discuss the hard times they’re going through because times were worse yeas ago?

Yes, the early 80s were a hard time. At one point my parents had four jobs between them in order to cover the bills.

However - their house also cost £36k, whereas our house (of comparable size) cost us £173k.

I don't deny that others times have been hard, or claim that this is a uniquely difficult period. I'm actually not sure I'm clear on what your AIBU is to be honest.

Maybe does not belong in AIBU?
My point was that very tough times are not unique to young people these days. Some posters expressly say this is the case, they are wrong.

creaky £36000 in 1980 is equivalent due to inflation, to £146,000.

Everyone thinks their generation has it hardest because we tend to view the past through rose tinted glasses, and of course what we are currently experiencing with all of our senses feels so much more vivid and meaningful than someone else’s memory or history books. I suspect it’s part of human nature for many, many years. And isn’t specific to the present day.

Did zero hour contracts exist then? Cos they’re an absolute scourge on society and I’m enraged they haven’t been banned yet.

I also lived through these years, I remember my parents struggling to pay the mortgage when interest rates were 13%, when unemployment was in the millions.

Despite this though, we were brought up with the expectation of buying a house, which I did. A three bedroomed terrace for £45k in a very nice sought after area. My yearly salary in my first full time job was £5k (I was earning more than this when I bought the house).

Now, I have 2 children. I am really worried about what jobs are going to be around when they leave school. With so many things being automated, & or just not needed.

I got my job with 4 o-levels (yes, I am that old!), going to university didn’t even enter my head. I now earn almost £60k.
None of my friends went

However, I am certain my children will have a tougher fight to earn that kind of salary. I am saving for my children’s university days, & they are only 8 & 11.

I think it’s not necessarily harder now, or it was then. I just think there are different problems.

Did zero hour contracts exist then? Cos they’re an absolute scourge on society and I’m enraged they haven’t been banned yet.

Worse than that, companies (often burger places) could tell people to 'clock out' in quiet periods but not let them leave. So you could go to work for 6.30 but it's quiet so you don't clock in until 8.30 and you clock out again at 10.30 You then stayed in the building and clocked in again at 1.00pm for an hour. So you had been 'at work' 6.30 - 2pm but you were only paid for 3 hours.

donna Sounds like you came from a better off background than I did. I grew up in a very damp rented council house, and earn less than half of what you earn. £60k is well above the national average wage, so most adults earn no where near that anyway.

My point was that very tough times are not unique to young people these days. Some posters expressly say this is the case, they are wrong.

I would live to see quotes of people saying this. I suspect what they have said is that the current problems are unique to this generation. Which is not the same as saying that problems are unique to this generation.

I know sashh, i survived on one for over three years :( hardest time of my life financially and mentally due to the stress of it all. Being sent home 15 mins after making the journey into work cos it’s quiet, without pay. Being kept until 2am when you were due to finish at 8pm.

The clocking out in quiet periods is a more recent practice. But back then there were very few fast food places. It was factories and retail.

I am not saying who has it toughest. I am really not interested in comparisons. Every generation has their own challenges to contend with. But I do suspect younger adults have no idea how hard it was for young ordinary people back then.

OP, the difference is that when your friend in the 80s had secured a job, she probably had secured a job. A young person these days has probably secured the need to hang around waiting to find out every morning if she gets to work- and if so, how many hours- in that factory, unable to take any other job in the meantime because of her zero hours contract. This situation is not unique in history, but it is not akin to that of the 80s.

Thatcher was in the process of breaking the unions, which were still unprecedentedly strong. These days they are broken.

I remember the 80s and yes, there was a lot of despondency. But also really high expectations. Dh flunked his A-levels and still went to uni. He expected to be able to save up for 10 years or so and then be able to buy a house: can't see any young people on his pay grade with those expectations today. Our generation expected to be able to move from home into a rented room in shared accommodation: can't see ds being able to do that for a long, long time.

Did zero hour contracts exist then? Cos they’re an absolute scourge on society and I’m enraged they haven’t been banned yet.

They were less common, but “flexible” contracts which allowed employers to send staff home if no work was available have always existed; and a lot of manual work and labouring until very recently was a case of being the first to show up at a site and getting picked. And of course, NMW didn’t exist until 1998.

There are certainly problems in the labour market for young people nowadays, but the idea that in “the past” everybody had a secure job for life if they wanted it is a myth.

I think what has made it hard for me and many my age (early 30s) is we were growing up with the "reach for the stars" mentality and believing I could achieve anything so long as I focused on my education and worked hard left me very unprepared for graduating during the latest recession.

I don't really know what sort of expectations other generations had but I think ours were pretty high.

I'll poke the hornets nest.

It never ceases to amaze me, people can travel across a continent, or even two or three to come to the UK to work to better their life, but for some, they cant make a 2 hour journey to London from up country to find work.

Tebbit summed it up: I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.

I'm sure some will misquote this.

We've all had it hard at some point.

But I do suspect younger adults have no idea how hard it was for young ordinary people back then.

Well, obviously! they weren’t there! They didn’t live it. How can you expect them to know what something was like that they’ve never experienced?

cory I think the middle class young person in the 80s had a better future. Only 14% of young people went to university, the vast majority did not.
Yes that is true, getting a job as a young person in most places in the country was very hard. But when you got a job, it was a job. Often less than NMW now, but it was a job.
And yes Thatcher was in the process of destroying the unions. Hence the miners strike and riots.

I was a young person then. Now i have kids of my own trying to do what i did at the same stages of life and they don't stand a hope.

It's worse now IMO.

plainspeaking I actually did travel to London and get a job there. A low paid job, but a job. It was before they changed legislation around renting to introduce shorthold tenancies and get rid of the safety old tenancies provided. Most landlords had stopped renting in anticipation of the changes to legislation. I lived in absolute shitholes and paying a fortune. I moved away after 2 years as I was so tired of paying a very large chunk of my salary, to rent a room in horrible shared houses.

Every generation or so will have had times of hardship.
Before the 80's there was war hardship with ration books and the introduction of the welfare state.
The late 80's/early 90's when people lost their homes.

Each era will come with problems - today it is zero hour contracts because you cannot plan your life around this. Getting top-ups is hard because of the zero hours. Getting housing is hard because of the zero hours, plus how can you save when you don't know your income? Getting onto the property ladder is a dream for many. No access to free university, and mean tested grants based on parents income (how that works when most move out for uni is insane). Many live at home until their late 20's because they cannot afford to move. Those that move out are living in substandard private accommodation for a premium (there are some utter dumps but tenants afraid to say anything in case they are evicted).

But then, of course, the advice is to get a better job. Move to a different area. Get a cheaper place to live. And let's not forget that they will be working longer than us.

It's in the past 10 or so years that jobs have been hard to get. Hundreds if not thousands applying for the same job. I remember walking into any job years ago. No shortlists. No additional interviews. One interview, and then contact to say congrats/sorry. Now from seeing my dc's go through interviews, it's in stages, dd's last job was a telephone interview, skype one and 2 face to face. Plus companies are closing all the time. One of mine has faced redundancy twice now and she's only 21. (Obviously, this applies to all generations).

The thing is - go back a generation more and you'll be told ''just be glad you aren't getting blown up''. My mother's family got bombed to shit in London, so they have a different perspective again.

There is no point in competing about who had it worse.

@marymarkle you gave up ?

snuggybuggy I agree. And as an adult I remember feeling sorry for your generation as I think you were sold a lie. I remember having those discussions at the time and being told I was wrong. It was an over reaction to past working class generations effectively being told to know your place and not aim to improve things.

I don't know, my mum left school in the late 80s, at age 16 without any qualifications, went to work in a petrol station and bought a house aged 19 with two kids by the age of 23.

I went to a redbrick uni, got a PhD, to start work on a salary of 19k with 25k debt and rent at the age of 30.

It's a fact that the world is a safer and more prosperous place than it has ever been, but there are certain things that are very uniquely hard for young people today, and my generation are statistically the first since the war to be worse off than their parents.

what I find odd is that popular culture has very little to say on the subject, it's all vacuous posing and me, me, me.

From UB40's One in Ten, that reached number 7 in the charts in 1981. Where are the songs like this? Why aren't the young people who say they are struggling writing songs like this? This kind of thing was all over popular culture in the 80s.

I am the one in ten
a number on a list
I am the one in ten
even though I don't exist
nobody knows me
but I'm always there
a statistical reminder
of a world that doesn't care.

plainspeaking I moved away to somewhere where I could afford to live somewhere that was habitable and I could afford. Call that giving up if you like, but I was never going to be able to afford to buy in London anyway, or even rent somewhere decent.