2008 Woodie Awards
New college graduates to face job market challenges
Skylar Gremillion
Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: Arts & Leisure
BATON ROUGE, La. (U-WIRE) - The upcoming generation of college graduates may have a rude awakening when they enter the job market.
Features of the labor market that our parents took for granted such as benefits, job security and a guaranteed promotion, are most likely a thing of the past.
Some researchers -- most notably Peter Capelli in his 1999 book "The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market Driven Workforce" - even imply these features themselves were an anomaly.
Like most kids that grew up in America during the '80s, I consider the accomplishments of my parents' generation as my model for success. I planned on finding a job and sticking with it until I moved up the ladder - going from rags to riches in a story that could happen in America.
I thought that was the way things worked.
My parents, like most students enrolled in the University, were baby boomers - arguably the most successful generation of Americans the world has seen.
They were a generation born to greatness and success and achieved both proficiently.
How could they not succeed? They were born into an incredible economic boom - likely the greatest this nation will ever see.
Their economic success has been both an incredible blessing and an unfortunate curse for all subsequent generations.
The prosperity that came out of the post World War II boom brought a number of improvements to the job market. The labor market itself became internalized, and many companies began building their future leaders from the ground up.
Jobs were stable, raises were guaranteed and internal job ladders meant loyal workers were nearly guaranteed a higher-ranked position if they simply stuck with it.
Over time, those features of the market became the norm but lasted only for a few decades.
The '80s and '90s brought about a change in the labor market structure that was more a return to an older system than a new labor revolution.
High costs of competition forced many employers to transition to an external labor market that relies on employees that are not homegrown but rather ready to go right out of the box.
Features of the labor market that our parents took for granted such as benefits, job security and a guaranteed promotion, are most likely a thing of the past.
Some researchers -- most notably Peter Capelli in his 1999 book "The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market Driven Workforce" - even imply these features themselves were an anomaly.
Like most kids that grew up in America during the '80s, I consider the accomplishments of my parents' generation as my model for success. I planned on finding a job and sticking with it until I moved up the ladder - going from rags to riches in a story that could happen in America.
I thought that was the way things worked.
My parents, like most students enrolled in the University, were baby boomers - arguably the most successful generation of Americans the world has seen.
They were a generation born to greatness and success and achieved both proficiently.
How could they not succeed? They were born into an incredible economic boom - likely the greatest this nation will ever see.
Their economic success has been both an incredible blessing and an unfortunate curse for all subsequent generations.
The prosperity that came out of the post World War II boom brought a number of improvements to the job market. The labor market itself became internalized, and many companies began building their future leaders from the ground up.
Jobs were stable, raises were guaranteed and internal job ladders meant loyal workers were nearly guaranteed a higher-ranked position if they simply stuck with it.
Over time, those features of the market became the norm but lasted only for a few decades.
The '80s and '90s brought about a change in the labor market structure that was more a return to an older system than a new labor revolution.
High costs of competition forced many employers to transition to an external labor market that relies on employees that are not homegrown but rather ready to go right out of the box.
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