The poor economy is equally affecting both extremes of the working age spectrum.

One in three 16 to 17-year-olds are unemployed in the UK (BBC Today snippet). Ten percent of 16 to 18-year-olds are not in education, employment or training (N.E.E.T.). Considering that’s a Government stat I think it’s fair to say it’ll be on the low side of real.

Generation Y (born 1980 – 1999) look to be at the forefront of the redundancy queue. They are felt to have less experience – therefore less value – and have less service under their belts making the cost and effort of redundancy less.

At the opposite end of the working generations is my father who retires this month. He couldn’t afford to fully retire so was planning to scale right back, working a day or two a week at his current employer. But now he’s had the double whammy of his industry shrinking and his pension paying 40% less than was forecast only six month’s ago. After working diligently for 47 years he has less income than planned and even less of a chance of making up the short fall.

You can see these chains of pain in every town across Europe. Sure, Japan’s shrinking GDP and America’s supersonic unemployment are worrisome, but 2009 will be the year this worldwide fiasco really hits home for the majority of us (if it hasn’t already).
Photo credit: Daquella Manera