

After the boomers, meet the children dubbed 'baby losers' - revorad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/11/spain.france

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hugh
Not to worry, there are still some good jobs in Europe.

Like, say, being a journalist for the Guardian. You can spend a week
travelling around Europe, collect a few quotes from people who feel like
whining about their financial situation, throw in a few fairly-meaningless
numbers (Spain's government cut its growth forecast slightly!) and call it an
article.

One interesting fact though: he had trouble finding a German with much to
complain about. The best he could do was some guy on a perfectly reasonable
salary of 2700 a month (about $US50K a year) in Berlin who admits his money is
okay but isn't doing what he "dreamed" of doing. Yeah, you and everyone else
with a degree in history and photography, buddy.

~~~
tptacek
Where in Germany? $50k/yr in San Francisco or New York metro is what McDonalds
store managers make.

~~~
petercooper
I might be totally wrong (and if I am, I apologize!) but I sense you're
implying $50k is low because it's what a mere McDonald's manager makes?

If so, McDonald's outlet managers might not seem culturally important or as
well qualified as historians, architects, and the like, but in terms of raw
capitalism, they provide a lot more value and have control over a real cash
cow and provider to the economy. This is why their salaries are pretty good
compared to the minions below them.

$50k/yr is a good salary on almost any part of the planet. It's the median
personal salary in the United Kingdom, for instance.

~~~
baha_man
"On Friday night, Lorenzo, 35, was on a train heading to work a nightshift for
a major American sales website's Berlin branch."

This part of the article is pretty useless, it doesn't actually tell us what
his job is. It sounds like it's not related to his qualifications as a
historian/photographer (whatever they are, again there are no details), in
which case you would expect his pay to be lower than if he had relevant
skills.

On the other hand, if it's a white-collar job, he's working nights regularly,
and only getting the $50,000 salary, this would be low pay.

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timr
I don't think this phenomenon is limited to Europe. I'm 31, I have an advanced
degree in a highly technical field, and it's unlikely that I'm going to earn
enough money to afford to buy a home (w/o ridiculous leverage) in the places
where I can find work in my field.

When my parents were my age, they had two children, a house and two cars on a
single electrical engineer's income. There's no way that's possible today.

~~~
trevelyan
It is the cost of housing that is the real problem.

~~~
timr
Largely agreed. Cost of energy is bad too, though, and that's driving
increases for nearly everything else.

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viergroupie
>There is a political swing towards what were once considered the ideas of the
political left such as minimum wages, benefits and so on,' said Holgar
Schaefer, labour economist at the Cologne Institute of Economics. 'It is a
tendency that is only likely to become more obvious in coming years.'

Uhhh..isn't tight regulation of the economy what fucked up their job markets
in the first place?

