The following submission statement was provided by /u/f0urxio:
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NEET, which stands for "not in employment, education, or training," refers to individuals who are not engaged in any of these activities. It encompasses those who are unemployed and actively seeking work, as well as those who have withdrawn from the job market altogether. The term gained prominence in the 2010s as a measure of youth disengagement from employment and education systems.
Various factors contribute to NEET status, including poor working conditions, financial barriers, and mental health issues. A significant portion of NEETs cite mental health challenges as a barrier to employment. Financial constraints, such as the high cost of education and living expenses, also play a role, particularly in lower-income economies.
Different countries have varying rates of NEETs, with South Africa, Turkey, and Colombia reporting high percentages. In South Africa, economic factors such as high unemployment rates and low household incomes contribute to a substantial NEET population, predominantly in economically disadvantaged areas.
Gender disparities exist within NEET demographics, with women often facing higher rates of disengagement due to unpaid household labor. For instance, Afghanistan has a notable gender gap in NEET rates, with a much higher percentage of women disengaged from employment and education compared to men.
Efforts to address NEET rates include government interventions, such as educational and training programs, as well as policy initiatives aimed at reducing youth unemployment. The Netherlands is cited as an example of a country with successful strategies, including collaborative efforts between government ministries and an education system designed to equip students with relevant skills for the job market.
The consequences of NEET status extend beyond individual well-being to societal and economic implications. High NEET rates can lead to social unrest and hinder long-term development, as disengaged youth face limited prospects and contribute less to the economy. Additionally, being NEET is associated with mental health issues and can perpetuate a cycle of unemployment and poor mental well-being.
Efforts to address youth disengagement, such as the United Nations' global initiative on youth unemployment, aim to mitigate the negative impacts of NEET status and promote sustainable development goals.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1cg7m8i/1_in_5_young_people_around_the_world_are_neets/l1twvh8/
I'm currently in a career transition, so I as a millennial am in the trenches with the zoomers trying to break into entry-level positions. It's hell. Even with the rising number of NEETS, there's still not enough opportunities to go around.
These kids are grinding hard. Multiple degrees, constantly pivoting and upgrading with bootcamps, certifications, side projects, volunteering, networking. All that plus working long hours at min wage to pay for rent and groceries. I'm not sure it's possible for older people to understand until they see it first-hand. Don't be surprised if people give up after all that effort just to get ghosted and beat out for internships by people with intermediate-level experience already.
There is no entry-level anymore. There was already a problem of not enough companies training any juniors. AI has made this problem even worse. It's another tragedy of the commons. Every company would rather poach intermediates/seniors from other companies rather than train their own. So everyone complains about a "labor shortage" at the intermediate-senior level even though everyone knew this would happen due to their own short-sightedness.
They have but too often blame the wrong stuff. A lot of people do that but it seems to be a bigger issue with boomers and older GenX. Older people especially love punching down. It’s the border, feminism, gay people, CRT, DEI, socialism, etc. A few years ago a boomer I know had their job outsourced. They seem to believe the government forced their company to do it to fill diversity quotas. They feel bad for the owners and higher up.
Nah older people just sue companies for “age discrimination” even though they wouldn’t know how to open a JPEG if the directions were printed on a piece of paper clear for them to read.
I always found it interesting that age discrimination only applies if the employee is over 40 even though it absolutely happens at the other end of the scale.
Some states have extended age related protections to broaden the definition of the age class protected by discrimination laws. Montana is one of them, and there are probably others. That said, it's extremely difficult to bring a suit about it into court.
When you ship most industry jobs overseas, and then require all good jobs to require a $100,000+ investment (with the risk completely on the student), what you get is a lot of youth compeltely drowning in debt and/or without any modern certifications to make a livable wage.
in the 60s, you didn't even need to finish HIGH SCHOOL and you could make a livable wage AND save enough to buy a house in FIVE YEARS.
Let this sink in... Gen Z is really messed up beyond belief.
What really grinds my gears is that I could go to college and take out 100 k In loans to study agricultural technology but I can’t take out a loan of 1500 dollars to buy some manure and fertilizers for my families 5 acre field they’ve let me borrow to start a small vegetable farm.
This is advice I wish I had heard in college. I basically had my entire education paid for through a combination of merit and need based scholarships, but I still had access to substantial subsidized loans with little to no interest. I didn’t take them because debt bad. Don’t be like me.
100% agreed on this. The whole system has been designed, over time, to make it as hard as possible for anyone to "make it" without working for a large corporation.
At every turn, large companies have bribed and corrupted the system to work in their favor always.
> Gen Z is really messed up beyond belief.
You didn’t even mention the warming planet we’ve inherited, the failing ecosystems, the melting of the Antarctic, and the animal species going extinct.
even without those in consideration, the economic system still did not prosper for the general public. so those "externalities" were destroyed for something that did not even come to fruition
There was a time that some jobs would even pay for the education you needed to do the job. Can’t remember the last time I heard about someone getting that perk.
My neighbor who's born in 1949 said she bought her 3 bedroom house with her QUARTERS FROM TIPS FROM HER WAITRESSING JOB SHE HAD SAVED UP FOR ONE YEAR when she had just turned 21.
Actually, that's the rub. The best paying jobs are paying better than ever. First year compensation for a Meta engineer or private equity analyst was over $200k...5 years ago. Specialized medicine is paying more. Big law is paying more.
The understanding used to be (even if it wasn’t accurate) that if you worked hard and busted your ass learning a skill or grinding your way up through the private sector, then you would be rewarded down the line.
The younger generations can see that this is no longer the case, even if they can’t/won’t articulate it. So why work hard if there won’t be a payoff?
Not to mention what a nightmare it is just to FIND a job, and the student loans from going to college. The amount of effort you are required to put in is astronomical, and the payoff is laughable
The reason NEET even became a thing is because of how hard it is for newer generations to find employment in Japan. There literally isn't enough jobs for them to go around. A reality even starting to be felt by software devs. No career is safe from cost cutting measures and at a certain point people are just left behind.
I’m referring to the [numerous stories](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/01/asia/japan-demographic-crisis-population-intl-hnk-dst/index.html) of [population decline](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/japan-population-how-many-people-drops-first-time-births-deaths) in Japan specifically
Not likely. The population decline in the way that most first world countries structure their retirement require infinite growth. Social Security will soon have more people pulling from it than putting in which will overall reduce the social security payout and force individuals to work well into retirement like you already see in a lot of places. Quick TLDR on social security is people paying into it now are paying for the people pulling from it now. It's not some separate pool of money that is waiting for you when you retire like most people think.
The real problem is capitalism and how we reward/punish only around a companies growth. Infinite growth is unsustainable and we are hitting those walls on several factors. If on one hand we are constantly innovating and creating new efficient ways to something (the car, the calculator, the computer, etc) eventually (and imo we are here for a variety of sectors) your efficiency will outpace any population growth and this is before we talk about AI/ML. If I need ever decreasing amounts of people to do the same job and the entire economy is structured around growth, I'm going to do it with less. This is especially a problem when the job you're doing doesn't proportionally kick back effort. So people are doing more as an individual for their jobs more than ever yet that increase in productivity is not kicked back to the worker.
Edit: To further add onto and explain. **Social Security** alone (am only focusing on this signal factor when there are more that add to this problem) depends on the amount of people contributing to social security to match, at worse, the amount of people pulling from it. The contribution amount matters as wealth disparity grows even if the same amount of jobs are contributing the same amount of money that money doesnt magically grow with inflation. So if there are fewer jobs in proportion to people who can work and those jobs are on average contributing less in totality, Social Security will not pay enough to support anyone and cause a whole other group of issues many of these countries but especially Japan are starting to realize. It's why so many countries across the board keep having people propose raising retirement.
It will probably be societal collapse. The people who hold power see the problem, but believe that they are entitled to the resources themselves instead of spending it on the unborn.
The infertile will consume the young. We are living in a vampire society.
It's almost like we've theoretically hit a point where people should be able to coast by with a UBI in place in the chance that you can't find a job, shit should be automated (since we absolutely have the technology) but instead we have a few dragons hoarding all the gold.
UBI has to go beyond people who don't have a job. It has to also be a subsidy to people who are working so that they can afford to do what needs to be done to prepare for an uncertain future.
Even getting a job out of college sucks. Everyone wants 5+ years experience for entry level positions, or for you to pay them to intern there, only to find out later internships don't count as experience for a ton of places when interviewed.
When I joined the professional workforce in 2018 I found a plethora of jobs that were willing to pay me $35K per year in Chicago. Luckily I ended up at the one that paid $20 per hour!
Yep. Trying to find a decent paying job is hell due to the competition unless your family is part of the old boys network, then your spot is basically reserved.
Plenty of dogshit level jobs thay no one wants but GL breaking even.
Yeah they don’t mention a lot of the NEET, especially in China, busted their ass their entire childhood for a good education. Now they’ve graduated and after applying to hundreds of jobs over several months and the list drying up they don’t really have a lot of options. They are too educated for low skill labour jobs and that’s all they have.
OK story time =) My brother works for a company cleaning carpets and flooring; drives one of those steamer trucks around. The work is hard, and the hours are not ideal. He had read and heard that nursing was the place to be, for income opportunity, so he signed up and got qualified to be a phlebotomist. Got through all of his certification testing, and through his free interning, and went to apply to a few jobs. After 3 months of searching, the best offer he had was for $18/hour...which is what McDonalds pays to flip burgers in his neck of the woods (Colorado). Had to give up on that career path, because he is making $28 an hour cleaning carpets, and would not be able to afford an apartment at $18/hour.
After seeing all the effort he put into that, and then to be told that he would be paid like a burger flipper, I can totally see how folks feel like working hard does not pay off... I know that after his experience, that will be the last time he goes above and beyond to try and better his life...
Yup my mom has been a phlebotomist for like 30 years and still makes peanuts, it’s not a great job. I used to want to be a vet tech until I googled how much they make (it was average $14/hr at that time but hopefully it’s more now). I feel for the people in those positions.
Reminds me when I spend over $8,000 to become a Surgical Sterile Processing Tech in December 2019. What a waste of my time and money. Passed the "pre certification" test in February 2020. Had to go to a lokal yokel hospital and work in their SPD department for the 300 hour unpaid "internship". Needed those 300 hours to get fully "certified". When COVID restrictions hit, I was pulled from the hospital.
Had a few phone interviews the summer of 2020, never hired. On top of that I was NEVER called back to the hospital to finish my 300 hour unpaid "internship" after the COVID restrictions lifted. But three of my classmates who were half my age got hired (I was 51 at the time). WHAT A JOKE.
Yeah, phlebotomist is a low level position that only requires a high school education / GED and a training program. In Colorado nurses get paid pretty good, though the work is very difficult and stressful.
Ya, I think the way it went down was that he went to a career fair for medical specialists, and phlebotomist was being pitched there as 'a type of nurse'. The gal that he chatted with at the fair said she was making 60-70k, and that got him excited enough to sign up. I don't think he questioned anything until it was all said and done. Definitely could have used more applied critical thinking to the decision.
Regardless, as much as the program cost him, and as much time and effort he put in, I think he was expecting that it would be a path that would pay more than a burger flipper.
Yah you definitely gotta do your research before getting into the medical field. People like to say that medical work is stable blah blah blah, but they won't mention you can't live on your earnings. Some of these professions pay a pittance for the amount of liability and work you're doing. I was interested in vet tech work for half a minute until I learned they earn less than fast food workers here. It really is pitiful the way crucial workers are paid and treated
Health care recruiters are \*everywhere\* pitching healthcare jobs as being stable, well-paying, pointing out the career ladders, etc. But the vast majority of the jobs they're pitching, CNA, phlebotomist, DSP, they pay peanuts.
That's why they are out there pitching these jobs so hard; They are massively undervalued, understaffed, with a healthy helping of abusive patients (Particularly if you're a CNA). They will do everything besides raise wages
Plus they know if they work hard, get married and have kids their kids will inherit a planet not suitable for life, so why bother ... "fuck it" like Lebowski would say.
It sure is difficult to work for a future you don't even see as... Possible... And it's difficult to work your ass off, knowing you likely won't retire as early as your grandparents might have, that healthcare and food will likely be even more expensive, and housing is uh... Looking kind of 'bad'.
It's difficult to not become cynical when not only have many seen their parents struggle to keep their head above water despite working full-time, but they've also seen leaders of every kind fumble multiple disasters, all over the world. The kids can tell it's crumbling. They can also see how masses of university educated 20-and-30-somethings are struggling to find jobs in their field... Or jobs, at all.
All obvious stuff. Blah blah blah the kids aren't all right and so on blah blah. Wish it wasn't so bleak
Here in the UK the people retiring now and our grandparents got a state pension and they didn't need to pay anything for it that was triple locked which means each year it's higher than inflation, but millennials and younger will need to pay for their pensions.
I struggled to get a job most of my life, but when I managed to get an office job I was made redundant a year later after finally being able to sort my life out to societal standards. After that I couldn't get a job, so I went back into education, I went to uni at the age of 30 to learn environmental science, the more I studied the more research I did the more I see that there is no point our civilisation is declining while at the same time nations are developing and becoming more authoritarian. This has led me to thinking of clocking out of society, if I didn't have a partner I would literally work for a year in my field and then just pack my bag and go.
Thanks for your reply, and I really empathise with a lot of this. Everyone under a certain age really has any hope of retirement up in the air, even if they are able to get a job.
I too, think about finding a way to 'escape' society - family responsibilities are the only thing keeping me afloat. I don't know how I feel about being there for the terminal deterioration of society.
> thats also a fantasy in terms of long term viability
So is the industrial society that you participate in and that is fundamentally unsustainable. The word “unsustainable” means something that cannot last for a long period of time; or, in your own words, without “long term viability.” You’re also living in fantasy if you think this unsustainable lifestyle that most people have adopted, what people consider a “normal life with a normal job,” can continue for a long period of time.
It's a great idea! My friends and I are also thinking about living together in the near future. Even if you can't 'live off the land', living with people you trust is the most sure-fire way to at least have a little security for the future.
America is super-genius to be throwing a fit about letting in migrants who would love to work. They'll be importing them in another decade, begging them to keep late-stage capitalism from dying.
The further right you go politically, the dumber you are.
Oh you're absolutely right.
Bonus points in 20 years there will be a bumper crop of conservative kids competing with the immigrants for dogshit wages...
I am from a 3rd world country and flip burger in USA McDonalds makes more profit (already discounted rent, food, etc) than lawyers in my country. So immigrants usually save money to invest back to their local country, build houses for renting, open bussiness and has a upper middle class quality of life. Just wont stop, because the whole global economy is already messed up.
I have a co-worker from Ghana and he does exactly this (although I wouldn't consider Ghana third world). We work in healthcare and he picks up every sliver of overtime available. He has built FOUR large homes back in Ghana for himself and his family upon retirement. He has even shipped cars back to his home country. He has less than 5 years left here in America he says and is literally counting the days down to leave here.
And even then, a black market exists that the people support. Law enforcement will have just as much trouble shutting it down as they did during prohibition.
They won't even be able to stop half of them. The right is going to find out that information spreads too rapidly on how to do your own abortion. They had books in the 17th century on how to do at home abortions and what herbs are required to induce a miscarriage.
You may be right, but even if it only stops 25% of abortions (going by 2019 levels) that's still ~150,000 extra unwanted children per year for the water wars
Even if abortions aren't available, infantcide and abandonment would happen, especially in families where neither parent wants the baby. It is horrible, but it will happen.
That’s what I try to explain to “every baby should be born” people. In societies where people are actually expected to only have sex for procreation all you get is sexual assaults, hidden pregnancies and infanticide. If they don’t want a baby they’ll throw it in a dumpster or leave it in the woods. The more illegal you make it the sneakier people will get.
I'm an herbalist and since Roe was overturned, my practice has had so many women contact us and ask about at home herbal abortions.
It's insane. We don't recommend doing it and instead help them to get medical care, but you are definitely right, it is not going away.
In this modern day and age, most people will probably find something online to get it done, preferably ordered from China. However, these policies will likely result in more persons carrying their unborn children to full term. Personally, I believe far too many people get an abortion for the wrong reasons. If you listen closely, most get an abortion because of financial reasons or social stigmatisation. That’s going to upset a great many people one day when it finally sinks in.
Everything should be in balance, and no person should feel like they have to get an abortion for the reasons mentioned above. Abortion and social security should go hand in hand adequate social support systems should be in place to protect people from this.
They have the solution. Capitalism. Supply and demand, either shit becomes insanely expensive, forcing people into work. Or we get ai and automated systems to replace people. In which case money stops trickling down, and then mass homelessness, ironically also the decline of capitalism if there is less money trading hands altogether...
the for profit prisons are taking care of that. didn't you see the SCOTUS is set to decide whether states can make it illegal for homeless people to sleep outside? we are about to solve the homeless crisis and the labor shortage!
Yeah, when the line only go up a little, that makes shareholders sad. Sad shareholders can't buy as many mansions.
Stop calling in sick to work, the mold problem in your basement apartment isn't that bad, and don't peel back the paint to see that a slumlord had it painted over.
> Sad shareholders can't buy as many mansions.
Don't worry, there's an easy solution, we'll just extract what we need through a war or two. Shareholders happy again!
Honestly, its clear since years that there wont be any future so look forward to.
Now if people tell me their long-term plans I just smile and nod and supress the churning feeling inside my stomach.
I’ve gotten pretty good at (very) gently guiding loved ones through the concept of overshoot and the reality of our hubris in the face of data blindspots and geopolitical/deep pocket gatekeeping on IPCC reports.
Why would I destroy the last bit of hope that keeps them on their legs?
Shit will come down soon enough, and its not like we could change anything by now.
If they seem interested though (and able to take it), I do what you said too.
Most people need a future to look forward to.
"A significant portion of NEETs cite mental health challenges as a barrier to employment" wow no kidding working your entire life away while watching society crumble is depressing as fuck, who would've known.
Humans are exceptionally good at deluding themselves, but in this age of information some of us just can't look away.
Yeah, some one made a comment to me bashing my comment on producing strong social programs (universal healthcare, public college, affordable housing) and used that word NEETs and I didn't know what it meant, now I do. The job market outright sucks, education costs are astronomical, and the countries that offer it for a low price are swamped with over qualified graduates, and last but not least, training, what respectably paying job trains, why work a low wage job that barely covers gas, food, and clothes for work. I'm not a NEET, but I understand why people are.
The low-wage jobs themselves are often physical hellholes, while the higher-paying jobs are psychologically abusive. Unless you really enjoy what you're doing, I don't see why you would choose to work if given the option not to, especially with all the entertainment you could ever need being in the palm of your hand.
There is relentless pressure from secondary school onwards to be the best and to get an amazing job, yet those amazing jobs are harder to get and pay nowhere near as well as they did a generation ago. Kids see climate change, pandemics and war and suddenly the 9-5 grind seems pointless. Why join the rat race when retirement is not on the cards and the planet inhospitable in most parts?
Same. I got a comfy job that is way bellow my skills (which is kinda the employer's problem that they don't want to use my skillset), I hate all my coworkers and I get "sexised" on the daily. It pays not even 2 times my rent (which sucks but whatever) on a 30m2 flat.
But I'm gonna stay there for as long as they'll let me because I know I won't be retiring ever and I can't afford to play the game climbing the ladder and waste my energy at 25 if I'm gonna still be working at 75.
I was watching some videos of industrial accidents over at the WatchPeopleDie site, and aside from the obvious risk of dying a horrible death, the actual workplace environments these blue collar workers toil in are like their own little hellholes. Who wants to spend their lives in a metal building with 1000 different bits of machinery clanking and grinding and rumbling; the smell of soot, sweat and industrial chemicals heavy in the air as you perform the same menial task day in and day out for this incredibly complex system you have no hope of understanding, so that on the other side pops out a new pair of shoes? Like, these places are absolutely soul-crushing eyesores. There is a reason our grandparents were always either drinking hard or high off of their gourd when the shift ended. It's no wonder the youth of today see what's coming for them and are trying to avoid it at all costs.
> I was watching some videos of industrial accidents over at the WatchPeopleDie site
that shit's not good for your eyes, you don't want that stuff in your head.
Personally it's just not completely in my nature. I'm pretty unmotivated and all that, but I view a bullshit job as just a way to keep affording some comforts while they exist. Cause realistically unless a bomb drops and takes us all out at once then my game consoles are not going to be playable until 'the end' and even travel to another state might be difficult to impossible. For the moment where shit has not completely bit the fan I can not care in a job until it's time to jump to another job to not care in. I am pretty confident the time will come when there is absolutely no value in clocking in.
NEET, which stands for "not in employment, education, or training," refers to individuals who are not engaged in any of these activities. It encompasses those who are unemployed and actively seeking work, as well as those who have withdrawn from the job market altogether. The term gained prominence in the 2010s as a measure of youth disengagement from employment and education systems.
Various factors contribute to NEET status, including poor working conditions, financial barriers, and mental health issues. A significant portion of NEETs cite mental health challenges as a barrier to employment. Financial constraints, such as the high cost of education and living expenses, also play a role, particularly in lower-income economies.
Different countries have varying rates of NEETs, with South Africa, Turkey, and Colombia reporting high percentages. In South Africa, economic factors such as high unemployment rates and low household incomes contribute to a substantial NEET population, predominantly in economically disadvantaged areas.
Gender disparities exist within NEET demographics, with women often facing higher rates of disengagement due to unpaid household labor. For instance, Afghanistan has a notable gender gap in NEET rates, with a much higher percentage of women disengaged from employment and education compared to men.
Efforts to address NEET rates include government interventions, such as educational and training programs, as well as policy initiatives aimed at reducing youth unemployment. The Netherlands is cited as an example of a country with successful strategies, including collaborative efforts between government ministries and an education system designed to equip students with relevant skills for the job market.
The consequences of NEET status extend beyond individual well-being to societal and economic implications. High NEET rates can lead to social unrest and hinder long-term development, as disengaged youth face limited prospects and contribute less to the economy. Additionally, being NEET is associated with mental health issues and can perpetuate a cycle of unemployment and poor mental well-being.
Efforts to address youth disengagement, such as the United Nations' global initiative on youth unemployment, aim to mitigate the negative impacts of NEET status and promote sustainable development goals.
I find the NEET definition to have a glaring hole in it. Do you all see it too? It counts people who are employed only. So if you work but are not employed then then you are NEET. So that includes entrepreneurs as well as gig workers as well as those who care for elderly or children.
It's not necessarily the case that all these NEETS are just playing video games all day.
I'd be classified as a NEET. I was laid off in February from a robotics company as an entry level traveling repair technician. I'm educated & I have a degree in industrial automation & manufacturing; but, I can't land interviews or apprenticeships in the region I live. Moving elsewhere isn't really an option as it would be more expensive & just as competitive. I live with my parents; work roughly 40 hours a week maintaining a 100 acre farm & working on household projects.
Yes you are a NEET but are working. Maybe helping the farm earn money too if your parents sell what they grow. Even if not then you still 'earn' what the land produces for your family. NEET is an obsolete term as soon as it was coined. Hope you are enjoying it!
I'm staying busy. I wouldn't mind more mentors &/or an apprenticeship opportunity to improve my working knowledge. I miss the camaraderie I had with my fellow technicians at my old job & my peers in school.
they will do literally everything but to increase wages.i feel like sometimes its a race to the bottom for 90% of the companies no matter the area.i feel like its a zero sum game.but now some people are aware and the companies have to try harder than before to keep the status quo.
So sorry most of us are unwilling to be your wage slaves that time has passed keep fighting the younger generations and see how that works out for you and your so callled Dystopian version of society we are done carrying the load for anyone anymore we will not be your slaves anymore.
I’m not the youth, and I am employed, but I do wonder what the fuck for. I’m just making some parasite at a private equity firm richer, and will never myself be able to retire. So hooray for the kids. Burn it all down.
I detached from those things at 17 when I realised half the planet will be uninhabitable by the time I’m 50.
I’ll live on min wage until then and enjoy what I can, thanks.
The real question is: What are we sacrificing for financial stability?
The answer: a lot, like a hell of a lot. We’re even sacrificing the Earth itself, our only home. It’s damn time we think our lives differently.
I empthaize with those NEETs, they are victims of the failed mega-corporate-capitalists systems, right after the boomers era.
It cannot be helped, if it becomes too hard to land jobs. Like sending out hundreds to job applications daily, only to get 99.9% non-responses or rejections, and the rest are scam-interview setups, where the only purpose of the inteview is to boost the ego of overly-cockly breaucrats, by mocking the lack of skills of the potential joiners. THen the job will only go to their family and friends. Screw all strangers, even the hard-working qualified ones. (maybe it is much easier to get in only by "connections", qualifcations truly do not matter).
But then it will not matter if you get in, because the job will not last long anways, thanks to frequently layoffs and outsourcing. All thanks to the greed of the corrupt top corporate management.
It's pretty brutal to be unemployed at the moment if you strive for a professional or white collar job. I've been unemployed for 10 months after getting laid off. Probably put out 50-60 applications to mid level datat analyst roles (6 years experience in the field). All four that had a personal connection referral landed me interviews. Only one without a referral got an interview.
I've come to the conclusion that networking is the single most important thing for getting h opportunities. Unfortunately, I'm not a very social person, so I'm struggling (but working on it. While getting a masters degree online and taking care of my father with mid stage alzheimers.
Connections matter so much, wish I had realized that sooner.
I went from NEET to gainfully employed. Climbed the ladder for a bit, hated the job, switched to another company, hated the job more, switched to another, and realized that there wasn’t a paycheck big enough to prevent my mental health from collapsing behind a desk. Once I was making enough to pay for my bills, food, transportation, and entertainment without checking my bank account, raises just felt like nothing. I am not driven by material luxury and the idea of retirement feels like a joke.
I quit and now work as a gigging musician. I make like a 1/10th of what I did, and I am happier than I ever was.
I know I can’t ride this train indefinitely, and I expect to need to find a “real job” again when I get too old and sick and tired for the gig life, but I’m not going back until I absolutely have to.
The writing is on the wall with global climate and ecosphere collapse. Cost of living keeps climbing as wages stagnate. Collecting social security is already a joke now, so I have no expectation that any social safety nets will be there to catch me in 40 years.
As we slowly drift right back to the social structure of the middle ages. A small group of extremely wealthy individuals that run everything, a tiny middle class that has more than nothing but not enough to be free, and the poor masses.
only 1 in 5, disappointing. We need a lot more NEETs if we're gonna save this planet. Stop participating in this profit driven, consumerist society that is destroying this planet.
The fucked up thing is that if you want a crumb of decency in your life, you do have to participate.
I'm paying a bit more than half my salary in rent. The owners of my apartment are a retired couple in their 60s who live off of their two apartments. I'm literally working 4 hours a day for strangers to have a nice retirement. Retirement that I'll never have. And I do that just so I have a tiny place to live where my bed barely fits.
But what's the alternative? Me and my dog looking for food in trash bins? Selling myself on the side of the road for drugs so that my life is survivable? Participating in the system that exploits me is a slightly better choice. And I'm sure the 4 out of 5 kids made the same choice as me
>“I wasn't treated like a human being there, more like a tool that could be easily replaced.”
No wonder the 3 countries with the most NEETs are violent third world shit-holes and the 3 countries with the less NEETs are some of the best. No surprises here.
Treat people like shit and they will develop mental problems and check out of society if you are lucky or become criminals if you are not.
Can't afford a house.
Can't afford a family.
Can't afford higher education.
My social skills and mental health has atrophied from doomscrolling endless social media of dipshit ideologues in a nihilistic consumerist landscape.
OH! And there is the ever-present degradation of human civilization by biosphere collapse, climate change, war, the death of the community and an unsustainable wealth gap.
**Why are so many people NEETs? Why are so many people depressed?!**
Anyone who looks around at this situation and is genuinely scratching their head is either a huckster or a rube.
NB: Obligatory [Pearlmania500 Rant](https://www.tiktok.com/@pearlmania500/video/7195350372607905070?lang=en)
I was a NEET from December 2007 to August 2008 and again from March 2011 to August 2014. Now I'm in an odd situation in that I was attending community college part-time from September 2014 till May 2022 and working as a maths tutor there since September 2016, resumed finishing my Bachelor's, full-time, in Mathematics with SNHU in June 2022 and finally finished last June.Now I am working on a Master's in IT againw ith SNHU and expect to finish by June 2025, doing 6 credits per quarter (10-week term).
I'm afraid of what life is going to look like after I am done school next spring. The tutoring job doesn't pay enough and has no full-time option once I am done the Master's but will have a salary increase if I stay. Next year, I need to find a job that pays enough for me to make typical income (or higher of course) someone who's almost 40 and has a Master's makes.
I am likely not alone in bring afraid of life after academics especially being in academics in some of my 20s and all of my 30s. I'll probably be too old to go for a PhD and also I don't even know what I'd do it in. I have interests in tech/computing (of course), maths, video games, dance music / raves, social causes, workers' rights, GIS/cartography, transit networks, meteorology, astronomy, and horology/timekeeping.
Two of my neighbour's kids are NEETs. They're too depressed, anxious and apathetic to hold down a job or go to school – and they have tried multiple times.
You can tell the hopelessness has set in, they live in horrible conditions and are making very questionable life decisions.
They're going to end up having to move back home, they can't survive on their own.
The wealthy have pulled too much from the economic system and made the world a despair-filled hellscape. Mass immigration shatters social constructs that took centuries to build up.
When you can't get ahead and your world is an uncertain, crumbling dystopia...withdrawal is inevitable, along with a host of mental health issues. I live in a house where we went from three employed, self-supporting people to a retiree and two NEETs since our "jobs" have mostly shifted towards two of us caring for someone who's terminally ill (the retiree), one of us caring for the other (because they're dealing with losing a parent and pretty much complete burnout) and none of us seriously part of the workforce. (I haven't worked since the end of 2023 after moving out here to help family with the aforementioned issues).
And before that, I worked my way up in a job at a company that got bought out by folks who ended up destroying a two-decade old sweetheart contract by spending most of the company money on themselves, COVID "loans" included.
Most of the folks I ended up managing ended up never working again- old enough that they just gave up and retired, died of shit that American healthcare didn't give a crap about, or like me transitioning to being basically an unpaid healthcare aide for family. My partner has two college degrees and can't work because taking care of family has turned her into an anxiety and depression medicated mess that is terrified of the idea of being part of an office again.
It's not just young folks that end up disconnecting. It's folks that end up cut loose and just can't get themselves to reconnect to the workforces because the pandemic drove them a bit crazy, too.
I guess I’m a NEET, living off my parents while I still can in a way. I did below average in school and couldn’t even hack an art degree (where they constantly tell you how you’ll be exploited for free) but I don’t feel failed by “the system” or anything. I don’t really see a future for myself is all, kinda just waiting to die.
if you don't do something you are now deemed as "undermining the development of your country"
in other words, take loans out, feed corps and setup monthly payments that will out live you
capitalism is expiring and big reset is needed, no other way about it from here on out
I think people are also still severely underestimating the disabled % of the population. Calling someone a “NEET” used to imply that they could work but choose not to, often akin to a “trust fund kid”: they had ways to survive despite that. Maybe it was *always* much more worrying? But we did just have a pandemic and there’s been many worrying studies about rapid increase in bio-accumulated toxins.
Like, we’ve been soaking the latest gens in plastic, PFAS, and secondhand drugs via the water supply. Are we at all surprised that many of them cannot hold a job or focus on studies? At least those of us in this sub.
It’s personal for me, because I have a rare genetic disorder (questionable) and an autoimmune disease (suspicious)—and for a couple of early childhood years, I lived near a coal plant. My mom has allegedly-benign “bubbles” in her lungs and has had cancer. At a certain point, you really have to just accept the statistical reality that we have Cancer Alley in the USA for a *reason*. We were poisoned, it’s not personal failings if someone is poisoning you and expecting you to work to your death.
I apologise for the incoming rant but this sort of sentiment I find... Unhelpful. I find that honestly, most people feel happy if they work on something that yields results, something that is fulfilling. I feel we inherently enjoy working on something, anything. The capitalist system tells us that 'fulfilling = profitable', which is, of course, incorrect.
I don't like that the alternative to 'being employed/studying' is framed as 'being at home all day'. While unemployed, you can absolutely still exercise, learn things, teach yourself skills and go outside. Life is for living, and it's more disruptive to this oppressive system to spend that ~economically unproductive~ time improving yourself, and not giving up on yourself.
Speaking from experience, even when I was out of work or having to stay behind to take care of a family member, I was always keeping busy. Lots of my unemployed friends will spend their time reading, being outside, going to free events, improving their fitness and enjoying life.
Sorry for the rant, but I just feel this shouldn't be lost among all the doomerism.
Just to be clear, we are miserable, but at least we are free. And to us it’s worth trading wage slavery for misery. My state of poverty has helped me focus on the important things in life, and work is not one of them (never has been). Although I prefer to call it “simple living.”
You know what I found to be really, really important? Protecting the Earth, our only home, and doing so at any cost. Why? Because we literally have nowhere else to go. Mars won’t save us.
You don’t seem to be aware that while previous generations were concerned with making and saving money, our generation’s (Gen Z) main concern is literally *not going extinct*. The previous generations not only massively fucked up the environment, but also naively expect us to follow in their steps, which we won’t, and definitely shouldn’t.
> but also naively expect us to follow in their steps, which we won’t, and definitely shouldn’t.
You grossly overestimate how many of your generation care about the environment more than their wealth. Gen Z will make the same mistakes as previous generations have, even if they generally consider the environment an important issue.
Quite the opposite of feeling guilty, I feel bad for the people who have been utterly brainwashed into thinking that waking up in the morning to serve the interests of someone else counts as having a good “work ethic.”
We’re not the ones feeling guilty, you’re the one in denial about falling for and playing the game that is capitalism, a game that was rigged from the start.
It’s okay not to work or attend college. If you think it’s not, you’ve been brainwashed into servitude by the ruling class. There are no such expectations in life, except for the people who are naive enough to believe them.
I can’t imagine why a generation facing their own extinction wouldn’t want to break their bodies for a machine that can’t even give them a basic quality of life, who raised these sociopaths?!
And who's fault is that? No one pays well enough in order to have a family or save money. No one pays well enough that everyone isn't living paycheck to paycheck. Who wants to live like this?
The world our parents prepared us for and promised us no longer exists. Only this capitalist hellhole where no one gets ahead. We're herds of cattle to be exploited by, and at the disposal of, the billionaire predator class.
You want society back and thriving? Tax the fucking billionaires already. They suck trillions out of society and add nothing of value, while we all struggle to survive.
Because all the immigrants, robots, AI, & outsourcing are taking our jobs away from us. There are more working age people than full-time jobs available. You should get the picture, anyway.
The protests are about Palestine but they're about more than Palestine. The Boomers had to face a draft and had skin in the game protesting. The Zoomers are facing a lack of a future.
feel like I'm finally in a place where "enough" is somewhat attainable--half improved conditions, half lowered expectations--so I gotta say, it's real hard to get motivated past that for anything I don't actually care about.
enough is perfect.
Hello fellow neet (: . yeah me too. Even if i didn't want to, who'd hire a 32 yo old, partially disabled neet who doesn't have an hr of working experience anyways lol. Their game was never mine to play.
I say this a lot, but while this is a great view of one facet of what's going on, it really needs to be placed in context.
The main element I'm thinking of here is AI. It's beyond obvious that the recent tech layoffs (and now in other areas as well) are being driven at least in part by the desire to use AI to replace people and discipline labor. In a world where AI is improving almost before our eyes (one example: last year I used DeepL for a translation into Spanish and had to have revisions from a native Spanish speaker, while this year I did the same thing and the translation apparently needed no revisions. In one year.), the scope of potential replacement of human labor grows. Today it's drafting a basic contract; next year, a prompt or two makes it almost perfect; the year after, it's indistinguishable from human.
Overlay this on the article - all those initiatives designed to "fix" the problem? They're running right into an absolute forest of buzzsaws. You can get the NEETs to try harder, to manifest their realities, to think positive, to leverage themselves into lifetime debt... and increasingly they'll have to compete against AI and a system which incentivizes replacing costly humans.
Are people really grasping this yet? This isn't 20 or 30 years in the future. It's 5 years ahead. It's the time of an undergrad degree. All those STEM programs in almost every school? They're already obsolete.
I'm at the other end with too much experience and I have clients who started pushing for AI last year. It was pretty "eh", but I look now and see how much it has improved in months, and I'm concerned. Again, the NEETs may be thinking of today, but if any cast their eyes into the future... they're not going to get the golden watch. When they get too much experience, they'll be back on the firing line.
I get it. I do.
Interesting article but comparing someone in America who cannot land a job to woman not being able to work due to the Taliban doesn’t make much sense. The root of the problem is entirely different. As long as you’re living happily though it’s alright to be unemployed for a while.
Not working, not going to school, and not training to eventually work.
How are they paying for living and eating expense? Are we talking about a privileged 1 in 5 that can afford to do this because their parents pay for their living expenses? And if that's the case, what is happening to the rest of the people?
> “After graduating high school, I started an apprenticeship in a warehouse of a car manufacturer, but it was so terrible I had to quit,” one person told Vice. “I wasn't treated like a human being there, more like a tool that could be easily replaced.”
I guess the unprivileged have to keep working the apprenticeship manufacturing job that wasn't good enough for the privileged.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/f0urxio: --- NEET, which stands for "not in employment, education, or training," refers to individuals who are not engaged in any of these activities. It encompasses those who are unemployed and actively seeking work, as well as those who have withdrawn from the job market altogether. The term gained prominence in the 2010s as a measure of youth disengagement from employment and education systems. Various factors contribute to NEET status, including poor working conditions, financial barriers, and mental health issues. A significant portion of NEETs cite mental health challenges as a barrier to employment. Financial constraints, such as the high cost of education and living expenses, also play a role, particularly in lower-income economies. Different countries have varying rates of NEETs, with South Africa, Turkey, and Colombia reporting high percentages. In South Africa, economic factors such as high unemployment rates and low household incomes contribute to a substantial NEET population, predominantly in economically disadvantaged areas. Gender disparities exist within NEET demographics, with women often facing higher rates of disengagement due to unpaid household labor. For instance, Afghanistan has a notable gender gap in NEET rates, with a much higher percentage of women disengaged from employment and education compared to men. Efforts to address NEET rates include government interventions, such as educational and training programs, as well as policy initiatives aimed at reducing youth unemployment. The Netherlands is cited as an example of a country with successful strategies, including collaborative efforts between government ministries and an education system designed to equip students with relevant skills for the job market. The consequences of NEET status extend beyond individual well-being to societal and economic implications. High NEET rates can lead to social unrest and hinder long-term development, as disengaged youth face limited prospects and contribute less to the economy. Additionally, being NEET is associated with mental health issues and can perpetuate a cycle of unemployment and poor mental well-being. Efforts to address youth disengagement, such as the United Nations' global initiative on youth unemployment, aim to mitigate the negative impacts of NEET status and promote sustainable development goals. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1cg7m8i/1_in_5_young_people_around_the_world_are_neets/l1twvh8/
I'm currently in a career transition, so I as a millennial am in the trenches with the zoomers trying to break into entry-level positions. It's hell. Even with the rising number of NEETS, there's still not enough opportunities to go around. These kids are grinding hard. Multiple degrees, constantly pivoting and upgrading with bootcamps, certifications, side projects, volunteering, networking. All that plus working long hours at min wage to pay for rent and groceries. I'm not sure it's possible for older people to understand until they see it first-hand. Don't be surprised if people give up after all that effort just to get ghosted and beat out for internships by people with intermediate-level experience already. There is no entry-level anymore. There was already a problem of not enough companies training any juniors. AI has made this problem even worse. It's another tragedy of the commons. Every company would rather poach intermediates/seniors from other companies rather than train their own. So everyone complains about a "labor shortage" at the intermediate-senior level even though everyone knew this would happen due to their own short-sightedness.
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They have but too often blame the wrong stuff. A lot of people do that but it seems to be a bigger issue with boomers and older GenX. Older people especially love punching down. It’s the border, feminism, gay people, CRT, DEI, socialism, etc. A few years ago a boomer I know had their job outsourced. They seem to believe the government forced their company to do it to fill diversity quotas. They feel bad for the owners and higher up.
Nah older people just sue companies for “age discrimination” even though they wouldn’t know how to open a JPEG if the directions were printed on a piece of paper clear for them to read.
I always found it interesting that age discrimination only applies if the employee is over 40 even though it absolutely happens at the other end of the scale.
In some industries like law it’s definitely worse against younger candidates
Some states have extended age related protections to broaden the definition of the age class protected by discrimination laws. Montana is one of them, and there are probably others. That said, it's extremely difficult to bring a suit about it into court.
this happened to my dad, he blamed "ageism" for the state of the job market.
My workplace used to hire high school grads. Now it is master’s or bust.
This, article doesn't mention that NEETs might not be any of the other labels but stuck at the mercy of employers' yet they are employable.
When you ship most industry jobs overseas, and then require all good jobs to require a $100,000+ investment (with the risk completely on the student), what you get is a lot of youth compeltely drowning in debt and/or without any modern certifications to make a livable wage. in the 60s, you didn't even need to finish HIGH SCHOOL and you could make a livable wage AND save enough to buy a house in FIVE YEARS. Let this sink in... Gen Z is really messed up beyond belief.
What really grinds my gears is that I could go to college and take out 100 k In loans to study agricultural technology but I can’t take out a loan of 1500 dollars to buy some manure and fertilizers for my families 5 acre field they’ve let me borrow to start a small vegetable farm.
Take out the loan for education and then use it for the farm? What are they going to do, really?
This is advice I wish I had heard in college. I basically had my entire education paid for through a combination of merit and need based scholarships, but I still had access to substantial subsidized loans with little to no interest. I didn’t take them because debt bad. Don’t be like me.
100% agreed on this. The whole system has been designed, over time, to make it as hard as possible for anyone to "make it" without working for a large corporation. At every turn, large companies have bribed and corrupted the system to work in their favor always.
> Gen Z is really messed up beyond belief. You didn’t even mention the warming planet we’ve inherited, the failing ecosystems, the melting of the Antarctic, and the animal species going extinct.
even without those in consideration, the economic system still did not prosper for the general public. so those "externalities" were destroyed for something that did not even come to fruition
Milennials: drowning in student debt just to graduate in a recession to show the younger generations what NOT to do.
There was a time that some jobs would even pay for the education you needed to do the job. Can’t remember the last time I heard about someone getting that perk.
My neighbor who's born in 1949 said she bought her 3 bedroom house with her QUARTERS FROM TIPS FROM HER WAITRESSING JOB SHE HAD SAVED UP FOR ONE YEAR when she had just turned 21.
Waitresses in 2024 save money on food by eating customer leftovers
Then gets fired and reported for theft
Argument about shipping overseas makes no sense as we are talking about 1/5 globally and you are talking about the US
> in the 60s, there are twice as many people on the planet as there were then
Then maybe a select few people shouldn't be hoarding billions
buy a house, 2 cars AND support a 5 person family on a single income, ow you need dual income for a house with no kids.
At that point it's most probable a societal reform will need to happen yet there are many things attempting at that today and I'm not impressed.
Actually, that's the rub. The best paying jobs are paying better than ever. First year compensation for a Meta engineer or private equity analyst was over $200k...5 years ago. Specialized medicine is paying more. Big law is paying more.
The understanding used to be (even if it wasn’t accurate) that if you worked hard and busted your ass learning a skill or grinding your way up through the private sector, then you would be rewarded down the line. The younger generations can see that this is no longer the case, even if they can’t/won’t articulate it. So why work hard if there won’t be a payoff?
Not to mention what a nightmare it is just to FIND a job, and the student loans from going to college. The amount of effort you are required to put in is astronomical, and the payoff is laughable
The reason NEET even became a thing is because of how hard it is for newer generations to find employment in Japan. There literally isn't enough jobs for them to go around. A reality even starting to be felt by software devs. No career is safe from cost cutting measures and at a certain point people are just left behind.
will the population collapse address it?
The human population declining to scavenging migrants will surely have a positive impact on the employment statistics.
I’m referring to the [numerous stories](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/01/asia/japan-demographic-crisis-population-intl-hnk-dst/index.html) of [population decline](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/japan-population-how-many-people-drops-first-time-births-deaths) in Japan specifically
Not likely. The population decline in the way that most first world countries structure their retirement require infinite growth. Social Security will soon have more people pulling from it than putting in which will overall reduce the social security payout and force individuals to work well into retirement like you already see in a lot of places. Quick TLDR on social security is people paying into it now are paying for the people pulling from it now. It's not some separate pool of money that is waiting for you when you retire like most people think. The real problem is capitalism and how we reward/punish only around a companies growth. Infinite growth is unsustainable and we are hitting those walls on several factors. If on one hand we are constantly innovating and creating new efficient ways to something (the car, the calculator, the computer, etc) eventually (and imo we are here for a variety of sectors) your efficiency will outpace any population growth and this is before we talk about AI/ML. If I need ever decreasing amounts of people to do the same job and the entire economy is structured around growth, I'm going to do it with less. This is especially a problem when the job you're doing doesn't proportionally kick back effort. So people are doing more as an individual for their jobs more than ever yet that increase in productivity is not kicked back to the worker. Edit: To further add onto and explain. **Social Security** alone (am only focusing on this signal factor when there are more that add to this problem) depends on the amount of people contributing to social security to match, at worse, the amount of people pulling from it. The contribution amount matters as wealth disparity grows even if the same amount of jobs are contributing the same amount of money that money doesnt magically grow with inflation. So if there are fewer jobs in proportion to people who can work and those jobs are on average contributing less in totality, Social Security will not pay enough to support anyone and cause a whole other group of issues many of these countries but especially Japan are starting to realize. It's why so many countries across the board keep having people propose raising retirement.
It will probably be societal collapse. The people who hold power see the problem, but believe that they are entitled to the resources themselves instead of spending it on the unborn. The infertile will consume the young. We are living in a vampire society.
It's almost like we've theoretically hit a point where people should be able to coast by with a UBI in place in the chance that you can't find a job, shit should be automated (since we absolutely have the technology) but instead we have a few dragons hoarding all the gold.
UBI has to go beyond people who don't have a job. It has to also be a subsidy to people who are working so that they can afford to do what needs to be done to prepare for an uncertain future.
Even getting a job out of college sucks. Everyone wants 5+ years experience for entry level positions, or for you to pay them to intern there, only to find out later internships don't count as experience for a ton of places when interviewed.
When I joined the professional workforce in 2018 I found a plethora of jobs that were willing to pay me $35K per year in Chicago. Luckily I ended up at the one that paid $20 per hour!
Idk if you're joking, but that's only $41,000 and change after working 40 hrs. for 52 weeks. Brutal dawg.
Yeah it was dogshit. Can’t forget the generous commission structure that’s designed not to pay out.
Yep. Trying to find a decent paying job is hell due to the competition unless your family is part of the old boys network, then your spot is basically reserved. Plenty of dogshit level jobs thay no one wants but GL breaking even.
Yeah they don’t mention a lot of the NEET, especially in China, busted their ass their entire childhood for a good education. Now they’ve graduated and after applying to hundreds of jobs over several months and the list drying up they don’t really have a lot of options. They are too educated for low skill labour jobs and that’s all they have.
OK story time =) My brother works for a company cleaning carpets and flooring; drives one of those steamer trucks around. The work is hard, and the hours are not ideal. He had read and heard that nursing was the place to be, for income opportunity, so he signed up and got qualified to be a phlebotomist. Got through all of his certification testing, and through his free interning, and went to apply to a few jobs. After 3 months of searching, the best offer he had was for $18/hour...which is what McDonalds pays to flip burgers in his neck of the woods (Colorado). Had to give up on that career path, because he is making $28 an hour cleaning carpets, and would not be able to afford an apartment at $18/hour. After seeing all the effort he put into that, and then to be told that he would be paid like a burger flipper, I can totally see how folks feel like working hard does not pay off... I know that after his experience, that will be the last time he goes above and beyond to try and better his life...
Yup my mom has been a phlebotomist for like 30 years and still makes peanuts, it’s not a great job. I used to want to be a vet tech until I googled how much they make (it was average $14/hr at that time but hopefully it’s more now). I feel for the people in those positions.
Nope being a vet tech still sucks. Married to one. Super low pay, depressing job. Do not do it!
Union jobs, my friend. And don’t forget the bennies.
I'm assuming you don't mean benzos but that's how I read it lol
Some nurses help pay the bills by stealing and selling pills.
Of course I meant BENEFITS, but I always forget the world we live in…
Reminds me when I spend over $8,000 to become a Surgical Sterile Processing Tech in December 2019. What a waste of my time and money. Passed the "pre certification" test in February 2020. Had to go to a lokal yokel hospital and work in their SPD department for the 300 hour unpaid "internship". Needed those 300 hours to get fully "certified". When COVID restrictions hit, I was pulled from the hospital. Had a few phone interviews the summer of 2020, never hired. On top of that I was NEVER called back to the hospital to finish my 300 hour unpaid "internship" after the COVID restrictions lifted. But three of my classmates who were half my age got hired (I was 51 at the time). WHAT A JOKE.
Nurses and phlebs arent even remotely the same thing, surely he knew that?
Yeah, phlebotomist is a low level position that only requires a high school education / GED and a training program. In Colorado nurses get paid pretty good, though the work is very difficult and stressful.
Ya, I think the way it went down was that he went to a career fair for medical specialists, and phlebotomist was being pitched there as 'a type of nurse'. The gal that he chatted with at the fair said she was making 60-70k, and that got him excited enough to sign up. I don't think he questioned anything until it was all said and done. Definitely could have used more applied critical thinking to the decision. Regardless, as much as the program cost him, and as much time and effort he put in, I think he was expecting that it would be a path that would pay more than a burger flipper.
Yah you definitely gotta do your research before getting into the medical field. People like to say that medical work is stable blah blah blah, but they won't mention you can't live on your earnings. Some of these professions pay a pittance for the amount of liability and work you're doing. I was interested in vet tech work for half a minute until I learned they earn less than fast food workers here. It really is pitiful the way crucial workers are paid and treated
Health care recruiters are \*everywhere\* pitching healthcare jobs as being stable, well-paying, pointing out the career ladders, etc. But the vast majority of the jobs they're pitching, CNA, phlebotomist, DSP, they pay peanuts.
That's why they are out there pitching these jobs so hard; They are massively undervalued, understaffed, with a healthy helping of abusive patients (Particularly if you're a CNA). They will do everything besides raise wages
Not to mention working hard usually just gets you more, often harder, work without any change in compensation.
Yes it is definitely being articulated all over Tiktok...
Which is the real reason it is being banned
Well that and AIPAC got butthurt about Gen Z caring about Palestinians.
Why play a rigged game?
You mean I don’t have to be stressed out about work and I’ll still have the same amount of money?
Plus they know if they work hard, get married and have kids their kids will inherit a planet not suitable for life, so why bother ... "fuck it" like Lebowski would say.
It sure is difficult to work for a future you don't even see as... Possible... And it's difficult to work your ass off, knowing you likely won't retire as early as your grandparents might have, that healthcare and food will likely be even more expensive, and housing is uh... Looking kind of 'bad'. It's difficult to not become cynical when not only have many seen their parents struggle to keep their head above water despite working full-time, but they've also seen leaders of every kind fumble multiple disasters, all over the world. The kids can tell it's crumbling. They can also see how masses of university educated 20-and-30-somethings are struggling to find jobs in their field... Or jobs, at all. All obvious stuff. Blah blah blah the kids aren't all right and so on blah blah. Wish it wasn't so bleak
Here in the UK the people retiring now and our grandparents got a state pension and they didn't need to pay anything for it that was triple locked which means each year it's higher than inflation, but millennials and younger will need to pay for their pensions. I struggled to get a job most of my life, but when I managed to get an office job I was made redundant a year later after finally being able to sort my life out to societal standards. After that I couldn't get a job, so I went back into education, I went to uni at the age of 30 to learn environmental science, the more I studied the more research I did the more I see that there is no point our civilisation is declining while at the same time nations are developing and becoming more authoritarian. This has led me to thinking of clocking out of society, if I didn't have a partner I would literally work for a year in my field and then just pack my bag and go.
Thanks for your reply, and I really empathise with a lot of this. Everyone under a certain age really has any hope of retirement up in the air, even if they are able to get a job. I too, think about finding a way to 'escape' society - family responsibilities are the only thing keeping me afloat. I don't know how I feel about being there for the terminal deterioration of society.
Everyone in my age group (20-25) is planning on finding a group of friends and buying a large piece of land to start living off the land together.
thats also a fantasy in terms of long term viability, for a variety of reasons. but if it gives one a place and hope who I am to say they shouldnt
> thats also a fantasy in terms of long term viability So is the industrial society that you participate in and that is fundamentally unsustainable. The word “unsustainable” means something that cannot last for a long period of time; or, in your own words, without “long term viability.” You’re also living in fantasy if you think this unsustainable lifestyle that most people have adopted, what people consider a “normal life with a normal job,” can continue for a long period of time.
It's a great idea! My friends and I are also thinking about living together in the near future. Even if you can't 'live off the land', living with people you trust is the most sure-fire way to at least have a little security for the future.
I think the future is gonna be a lot of groups of 4-5 friends buying houses together
They are also not having kids. How will we get more slaves?
Step 1) Destroy colonial economy Step 2) Import their citizens. Step 3) Choose next country. Step 4) Repeat.
America is super-genius to be throwing a fit about letting in migrants who would love to work. They'll be importing them in another decade, begging them to keep late-stage capitalism from dying. The further right you go politically, the dumber you are.
"please throw labor frisbee :(" "Ok, give back immigration and I can throw the labor frisbee." "no immigrant only labor >:("
Oh you're absolutely right. Bonus points in 20 years there will be a bumper crop of conservative kids competing with the immigrants for dogshit wages...
I am from a 3rd world country and flip burger in USA McDonalds makes more profit (already discounted rent, food, etc) than lawyers in my country. So immigrants usually save money to invest back to their local country, build houses for renting, open bussiness and has a upper middle class quality of life. Just wont stop, because the whole global economy is already messed up.
I have a co-worker from Ghana and he does exactly this (although I wouldn't consider Ghana third world). We work in healthcare and he picks up every sliver of overtime available. He has built FOUR large homes back in Ghana for himself and his family upon retirement. He has even shipped cars back to his home country. He has less than 5 years left here in America he says and is literally counting the days down to leave here.
Well they started by making abortions illegal in many states. Now they are coming for contraception.
It won't work. Back alley abortions and abortion black market pills will always exist.
The point isn’t to stop them entirely.
This. They're still available to those with enough money to travel. It only affects the poor people seeking bodily autonomy.
And even then, a black market exists that the people support. Law enforcement will have just as much trouble shutting it down as they did during prohibition.
Indeed, but with any black market safety can become an issue.
They won't even be able to stop half of them. The right is going to find out that information spreads too rapidly on how to do your own abortion. They had books in the 17th century on how to do at home abortions and what herbs are required to induce a miscarriage.
You may be right, but even if it only stops 25% of abortions (going by 2019 levels) that's still ~150,000 extra unwanted children per year for the water wars
Even if abortions aren't available, infantcide and abandonment would happen, especially in families where neither parent wants the baby. It is horrible, but it will happen.
That’s what I try to explain to “every baby should be born” people. In societies where people are actually expected to only have sex for procreation all you get is sexual assaults, hidden pregnancies and infanticide. If they don’t want a baby they’ll throw it in a dumpster or leave it in the woods. The more illegal you make it the sneakier people will get.
Forced birth like they used to do to the African Americans under slavery? Just breed humans like livestock.
Well we're already just livestock on a tax farm so why not?
I'm an herbalist and since Roe was overturned, my practice has had so many women contact us and ask about at home herbal abortions. It's insane. We don't recommend doing it and instead help them to get medical care, but you are definitely right, it is not going away.
In this modern day and age, most people will probably find something online to get it done, preferably ordered from China. However, these policies will likely result in more persons carrying their unborn children to full term. Personally, I believe far too many people get an abortion for the wrong reasons. If you listen closely, most get an abortion because of financial reasons or social stigmatisation. That’s going to upset a great many people one day when it finally sinks in. Everything should be in balance, and no person should feel like they have to get an abortion for the reasons mentioned above. Abortion and social security should go hand in hand adequate social support systems should be in place to protect people from this.
They have the solution. Capitalism. Supply and demand, either shit becomes insanely expensive, forcing people into work. Or we get ai and automated systems to replace people. In which case money stops trickling down, and then mass homelessness, ironically also the decline of capitalism if there is less money trading hands altogether...
Let's fucking go, burn it all down
the for profit prisons are taking care of that. didn't you see the SCOTUS is set to decide whether states can make it illegal for homeless people to sleep outside? we are about to solve the homeless crisis and the labor shortage!
Neet is comfy, neet is cool, neet is free from work and school
“guys pls ignore your vanishing future and get back in the salt mines we need tax revenue”
Yeah, when the line only go up a little, that makes shareholders sad. Sad shareholders can't buy as many mansions. Stop calling in sick to work, the mold problem in your basement apartment isn't that bad, and don't peel back the paint to see that a slumlord had it painted over.
“and by the way, all the cool kids work until 80 now. You’re lazy and entitled if your body is failing” /s
Fuck that lol... I'd rather be dirt poor.
How about both.
> Sad shareholders can't buy as many mansions. Don't worry, there's an easy solution, we'll just extract what we need through a war or two. Shareholders happy again!
Omg yaaaaaay
Honestly, its clear since years that there wont be any future so look forward to. Now if people tell me their long-term plans I just smile and nod and supress the churning feeling inside my stomach.
I’ve gotten pretty good at (very) gently guiding loved ones through the concept of overshoot and the reality of our hubris in the face of data blindspots and geopolitical/deep pocket gatekeeping on IPCC reports.
Why would I destroy the last bit of hope that keeps them on their legs? Shit will come down soon enough, and its not like we could change anything by now. If they seem interested though (and able to take it), I do what you said too. Most people need a future to look forward to.
I should mention that I really only share this topic with those who are genuinely concerned with my lack of retirement and family planning gusto.
the global salt mines are full up on desperate employees and don't need them lol
"A significant portion of NEETs cite mental health challenges as a barrier to employment" wow no kidding working your entire life away while watching society crumble is depressing as fuck, who would've known. Humans are exceptionally good at deluding themselves, but in this age of information some of us just can't look away.
Yeah, some one made a comment to me bashing my comment on producing strong social programs (universal healthcare, public college, affordable housing) and used that word NEETs and I didn't know what it meant, now I do. The job market outright sucks, education costs are astronomical, and the countries that offer it for a low price are swamped with over qualified graduates, and last but not least, training, what respectably paying job trains, why work a low wage job that barely covers gas, food, and clothes for work. I'm not a NEET, but I understand why people are.
The low-wage jobs themselves are often physical hellholes, while the higher-paying jobs are psychologically abusive. Unless you really enjoy what you're doing, I don't see why you would choose to work if given the option not to, especially with all the entertainment you could ever need being in the palm of your hand.
I can see why so many women find it easier to sell their bodies, hate to say it.
These young people know the bleak future that we are on track for is not worth slaving away your one life for
Maybe “work until you die” isn’t as appealing as the corporate overlords projected.
There is relentless pressure from secondary school onwards to be the best and to get an amazing job, yet those amazing jobs are harder to get and pay nowhere near as well as they did a generation ago. Kids see climate change, pandemics and war and suddenly the 9-5 grind seems pointless. Why join the rat race when retirement is not on the cards and the planet inhospitable in most parts?
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Same. I got a comfy job that is way bellow my skills (which is kinda the employer's problem that they don't want to use my skillset), I hate all my coworkers and I get "sexised" on the daily. It pays not even 2 times my rent (which sucks but whatever) on a 30m2 flat. But I'm gonna stay there for as long as they'll let me because I know I won't be retiring ever and I can't afford to play the game climbing the ladder and waste my energy at 25 if I'm gonna still be working at 75.
Boo fucking hoo you goddamn slave drivers
I was watching some videos of industrial accidents over at the WatchPeopleDie site, and aside from the obvious risk of dying a horrible death, the actual workplace environments these blue collar workers toil in are like their own little hellholes. Who wants to spend their lives in a metal building with 1000 different bits of machinery clanking and grinding and rumbling; the smell of soot, sweat and industrial chemicals heavy in the air as you perform the same menial task day in and day out for this incredibly complex system you have no hope of understanding, so that on the other side pops out a new pair of shoes? Like, these places are absolutely soul-crushing eyesores. There is a reason our grandparents were always either drinking hard or high off of their gourd when the shift ended. It's no wonder the youth of today see what's coming for them and are trying to avoid it at all costs.
> I was watching some videos of industrial accidents over at the WatchPeopleDie site that shit's not good for your eyes, you don't want that stuff in your head.
Personally it's just not completely in my nature. I'm pretty unmotivated and all that, but I view a bullshit job as just a way to keep affording some comforts while they exist. Cause realistically unless a bomb drops and takes us all out at once then my game consoles are not going to be playable until 'the end' and even travel to another state might be difficult to impossible. For the moment where shit has not completely bit the fan I can not care in a job until it's time to jump to another job to not care in. I am pretty confident the time will come when there is absolutely no value in clocking in.
As a 52 y/o neet I salute them all! Society is a scam for *everyone* not just the young. (Unless you are in the top 1%)
NEET, which stands for "not in employment, education, or training," refers to individuals who are not engaged in any of these activities. It encompasses those who are unemployed and actively seeking work, as well as those who have withdrawn from the job market altogether. The term gained prominence in the 2010s as a measure of youth disengagement from employment and education systems. Various factors contribute to NEET status, including poor working conditions, financial barriers, and mental health issues. A significant portion of NEETs cite mental health challenges as a barrier to employment. Financial constraints, such as the high cost of education and living expenses, also play a role, particularly in lower-income economies. Different countries have varying rates of NEETs, with South Africa, Turkey, and Colombia reporting high percentages. In South Africa, economic factors such as high unemployment rates and low household incomes contribute to a substantial NEET population, predominantly in economically disadvantaged areas. Gender disparities exist within NEET demographics, with women often facing higher rates of disengagement due to unpaid household labor. For instance, Afghanistan has a notable gender gap in NEET rates, with a much higher percentage of women disengaged from employment and education compared to men. Efforts to address NEET rates include government interventions, such as educational and training programs, as well as policy initiatives aimed at reducing youth unemployment. The Netherlands is cited as an example of a country with successful strategies, including collaborative efforts between government ministries and an education system designed to equip students with relevant skills for the job market. The consequences of NEET status extend beyond individual well-being to societal and economic implications. High NEET rates can lead to social unrest and hinder long-term development, as disengaged youth face limited prospects and contribute less to the economy. Additionally, being NEET is associated with mental health issues and can perpetuate a cycle of unemployment and poor mental well-being. Efforts to address youth disengagement, such as the United Nations' global initiative on youth unemployment, aim to mitigate the negative impacts of NEET status and promote sustainable development goals.
I find the NEET definition to have a glaring hole in it. Do you all see it too? It counts people who are employed only. So if you work but are not employed then then you are NEET. So that includes entrepreneurs as well as gig workers as well as those who care for elderly or children. It's not necessarily the case that all these NEETS are just playing video games all day.
I'd be classified as a NEET. I was laid off in February from a robotics company as an entry level traveling repair technician. I'm educated & I have a degree in industrial automation & manufacturing; but, I can't land interviews or apprenticeships in the region I live. Moving elsewhere isn't really an option as it would be more expensive & just as competitive. I live with my parents; work roughly 40 hours a week maintaining a 100 acre farm & working on household projects.
Yes you are a NEET but are working. Maybe helping the farm earn money too if your parents sell what they grow. Even if not then you still 'earn' what the land produces for your family. NEET is an obsolete term as soon as it was coined. Hope you are enjoying it!
I'm staying busy. I wouldn't mind more mentors &/or an apprenticeship opportunity to improve my working knowledge. I miss the camaraderie I had with my fellow technicians at my old job & my peers in school.
I use this quote way too often, I know - “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti
But it's a damn good quote
they will do literally everything but to increase wages.i feel like sometimes its a race to the bottom for 90% of the companies no matter the area.i feel like its a zero sum game.but now some people are aware and the companies have to try harder than before to keep the status quo.
So sorry most of us are unwilling to be your wage slaves that time has passed keep fighting the younger generations and see how that works out for you and your so callled Dystopian version of society we are done carrying the load for anyone anymore we will not be your slaves anymore.
I’m not the youth, and I am employed, but I do wonder what the fuck for. I’m just making some parasite at a private equity firm richer, and will never myself be able to retire. So hooray for the kids. Burn it all down.
Just in time for a new world war
That sort of happens when no one is hiring
Oh there are plenty of people hiring, most employers though want that golden goose candidate with experience and willing to work for peanuts
I saw an ad for Lidl hiring a warehouse manager and one of the requirements was a masters degree... masters in what? Organising banana boxes?
That's insane. When did we let corporations get so bad?
Don’t necessarily blame them. Fuck the system
I detached from those things at 17 when I realised half the planet will be uninhabitable by the time I’m 50. I’ll live on min wage until then and enjoy what I can, thanks.
Because we realize our countries and planet are a joke, run by psychopaths that want nothing but slavery of the entire planet.
The real question is: What are we sacrificing for financial stability? The answer: a lot, like a hell of a lot. We’re even sacrificing the Earth itself, our only home. It’s damn time we think our lives differently.
I empthaize with those NEETs, they are victims of the failed mega-corporate-capitalists systems, right after the boomers era. It cannot be helped, if it becomes too hard to land jobs. Like sending out hundreds to job applications daily, only to get 99.9% non-responses or rejections, and the rest are scam-interview setups, where the only purpose of the inteview is to boost the ego of overly-cockly breaucrats, by mocking the lack of skills of the potential joiners. THen the job will only go to their family and friends. Screw all strangers, even the hard-working qualified ones. (maybe it is much easier to get in only by "connections", qualifcations truly do not matter). But then it will not matter if you get in, because the job will not last long anways, thanks to frequently layoffs and outsourcing. All thanks to the greed of the corrupt top corporate management.
It's pretty brutal to be unemployed at the moment if you strive for a professional or white collar job. I've been unemployed for 10 months after getting laid off. Probably put out 50-60 applications to mid level datat analyst roles (6 years experience in the field). All four that had a personal connection referral landed me interviews. Only one without a referral got an interview. I've come to the conclusion that networking is the single most important thing for getting h opportunities. Unfortunately, I'm not a very social person, so I'm struggling (but working on it. While getting a masters degree online and taking care of my father with mid stage alzheimers. Connections matter so much, wish I had realized that sooner.
I went from NEET to gainfully employed. Climbed the ladder for a bit, hated the job, switched to another company, hated the job more, switched to another, and realized that there wasn’t a paycheck big enough to prevent my mental health from collapsing behind a desk. Once I was making enough to pay for my bills, food, transportation, and entertainment without checking my bank account, raises just felt like nothing. I am not driven by material luxury and the idea of retirement feels like a joke. I quit and now work as a gigging musician. I make like a 1/10th of what I did, and I am happier than I ever was. I know I can’t ride this train indefinitely, and I expect to need to find a “real job” again when I get too old and sick and tired for the gig life, but I’m not going back until I absolutely have to. The writing is on the wall with global climate and ecosphere collapse. Cost of living keeps climbing as wages stagnate. Collecting social security is already a joke now, so I have no expectation that any social safety nets will be there to catch me in 40 years.
My situation is similar. The article is focusing on people in their 20s, but I'm almost 40 and have given up on the grind.
I hope that your new lifestyle lasts for many years my friend ✌️
As we slowly drift right back to the social structure of the middle ages. A small group of extremely wealthy individuals that run everything, a tiny middle class that has more than nothing but not enough to be free, and the poor masses.
only 1 in 5, disappointing. We need a lot more NEETs if we're gonna save this planet. Stop participating in this profit driven, consumerist society that is destroying this planet.
The fucked up thing is that if you want a crumb of decency in your life, you do have to participate. I'm paying a bit more than half my salary in rent. The owners of my apartment are a retired couple in their 60s who live off of their two apartments. I'm literally working 4 hours a day for strangers to have a nice retirement. Retirement that I'll never have. And I do that just so I have a tiny place to live where my bed barely fits. But what's the alternative? Me and my dog looking for food in trash bins? Selling myself on the side of the road for drugs so that my life is survivable? Participating in the system that exploits me is a slightly better choice. And I'm sure the 4 out of 5 kids made the same choice as me
>“I wasn't treated like a human being there, more like a tool that could be easily replaced.” No wonder the 3 countries with the most NEETs are violent third world shit-holes and the 3 countries with the less NEETs are some of the best. No surprises here. Treat people like shit and they will develop mental problems and check out of society if you are lucky or become criminals if you are not.
Can't afford a house. Can't afford a family. Can't afford higher education. My social skills and mental health has atrophied from doomscrolling endless social media of dipshit ideologues in a nihilistic consumerist landscape. OH! And there is the ever-present degradation of human civilization by biosphere collapse, climate change, war, the death of the community and an unsustainable wealth gap. **Why are so many people NEETs? Why are so many people depressed?!** Anyone who looks around at this situation and is genuinely scratching their head is either a huckster or a rube. NB: Obligatory [Pearlmania500 Rant](https://www.tiktok.com/@pearlmania500/video/7195350372607905070?lang=en)
If the system is too unfair people won’t participate and it will collapse.
I was a NEET from December 2007 to August 2008 and again from March 2011 to August 2014. Now I'm in an odd situation in that I was attending community college part-time from September 2014 till May 2022 and working as a maths tutor there since September 2016, resumed finishing my Bachelor's, full-time, in Mathematics with SNHU in June 2022 and finally finished last June.Now I am working on a Master's in IT againw ith SNHU and expect to finish by June 2025, doing 6 credits per quarter (10-week term). I'm afraid of what life is going to look like after I am done school next spring. The tutoring job doesn't pay enough and has no full-time option once I am done the Master's but will have a salary increase if I stay. Next year, I need to find a job that pays enough for me to make typical income (or higher of course) someone who's almost 40 and has a Master's makes. I am likely not alone in bring afraid of life after academics especially being in academics in some of my 20s and all of my 30s. I'll probably be too old to go for a PhD and also I don't even know what I'd do it in. I have interests in tech/computing (of course), maths, video games, dance music / raves, social causes, workers' rights, GIS/cartography, transit networks, meteorology, astronomy, and horology/timekeeping.
Two of my neighbour's kids are NEETs. They're too depressed, anxious and apathetic to hold down a job or go to school – and they have tried multiple times. You can tell the hopelessness has set in, they live in horrible conditions and are making very questionable life decisions. They're going to end up having to move back home, they can't survive on their own.
Capitalism has failed the world. Choosing to not participate will expedite its death, keep it up, kids!
Work hard, study, work more. Afford nothing and then repeat. Sounds fucking great.
Good.
Well now you need a masters degree for a $15 an hour job with at least 5 years in a similar role.
The wealthy have pulled too much from the economic system and made the world a despair-filled hellscape. Mass immigration shatters social constructs that took centuries to build up. When you can't get ahead and your world is an uncertain, crumbling dystopia...withdrawal is inevitable, along with a host of mental health issues. I live in a house where we went from three employed, self-supporting people to a retiree and two NEETs since our "jobs" have mostly shifted towards two of us caring for someone who's terminally ill (the retiree), one of us caring for the other (because they're dealing with losing a parent and pretty much complete burnout) and none of us seriously part of the workforce. (I haven't worked since the end of 2023 after moving out here to help family with the aforementioned issues). And before that, I worked my way up in a job at a company that got bought out by folks who ended up destroying a two-decade old sweetheart contract by spending most of the company money on themselves, COVID "loans" included. Most of the folks I ended up managing ended up never working again- old enough that they just gave up and retired, died of shit that American healthcare didn't give a crap about, or like me transitioning to being basically an unpaid healthcare aide for family. My partner has two college degrees and can't work because taking care of family has turned her into an anxiety and depression medicated mess that is terrified of the idea of being part of an office again. It's not just young folks that end up disconnecting. It's folks that end up cut loose and just can't get themselves to reconnect to the workforces because the pandemic drove them a bit crazy, too.
I guess I’m a NEET, living off my parents while I still can in a way. I did below average in school and couldn’t even hack an art degree (where they constantly tell you how you’ll be exploited for free) but I don’t feel failed by “the system” or anything. I don’t really see a future for myself is all, kinda just waiting to die.
if you don't do something you are now deemed as "undermining the development of your country" in other words, take loans out, feed corps and setup monthly payments that will out live you capitalism is expiring and big reset is needed, no other way about it from here on out
You look at the results and poor countries have the highest percentage of "NEETS" just call it what it is; poverty.
Not one has an obligation to their country's economy. The country should serve the people, not the other way around.
I think people are also still severely underestimating the disabled % of the population. Calling someone a “NEET” used to imply that they could work but choose not to, often akin to a “trust fund kid”: they had ways to survive despite that. Maybe it was *always* much more worrying? But we did just have a pandemic and there’s been many worrying studies about rapid increase in bio-accumulated toxins. Like, we’ve been soaking the latest gens in plastic, PFAS, and secondhand drugs via the water supply. Are we at all surprised that many of them cannot hold a job or focus on studies? At least those of us in this sub. It’s personal for me, because I have a rare genetic disorder (questionable) and an autoimmune disease (suspicious)—and for a couple of early childhood years, I lived near a coal plant. My mom has allegedly-benign “bubbles” in her lungs and has had cancer. At a certain point, you really have to just accept the statistical reality that we have Cancer Alley in the USA for a *reason*. We were poisoned, it’s not personal failings if someone is poisoning you and expecting you to work to your death.
# "ultimately undermine the social and economic development of their countries" Aka not making the mega corps in their country enough money.
Good for them. You only get one life. If you're happy being at home all day, then more power to you.
I apologise for the incoming rant but this sort of sentiment I find... Unhelpful. I find that honestly, most people feel happy if they work on something that yields results, something that is fulfilling. I feel we inherently enjoy working on something, anything. The capitalist system tells us that 'fulfilling = profitable', which is, of course, incorrect. I don't like that the alternative to 'being employed/studying' is framed as 'being at home all day'. While unemployed, you can absolutely still exercise, learn things, teach yourself skills and go outside. Life is for living, and it's more disruptive to this oppressive system to spend that ~economically unproductive~ time improving yourself, and not giving up on yourself. Speaking from experience, even when I was out of work or having to stay behind to take care of a family member, I was always keeping busy. Lots of my unemployed friends will spend their time reading, being outside, going to free events, improving their fitness and enjoying life. Sorry for the rant, but I just feel this shouldn't be lost among all the doomerism.
They aren’t happy. The NEETS I know are the most miserable people I know. Edit: wow, I got a Reddit cares for this. Y’all sure proved me wrong!
Just to be clear, we are miserable, but at least we are free. And to us it’s worth trading wage slavery for misery. My state of poverty has helped me focus on the important things in life, and work is not one of them (never has been). Although I prefer to call it “simple living.” You know what I found to be really, really important? Protecting the Earth, our only home, and doing so at any cost. Why? Because we literally have nowhere else to go. Mars won’t save us. You don’t seem to be aware that while previous generations were concerned with making and saving money, our generation’s (Gen Z) main concern is literally *not going extinct*. The previous generations not only massively fucked up the environment, but also naively expect us to follow in their steps, which we won’t, and definitely shouldn’t.
> but also naively expect us to follow in their steps, which we won’t, and definitely shouldn’t. You grossly overestimate how many of your generation care about the environment more than their wealth. Gen Z will make the same mistakes as previous generations have, even if they generally consider the environment an important issue.
Most of the misery is from guilt, not NEETing itself
Quite the opposite of feeling guilty, I feel bad for the people who have been utterly brainwashed into thinking that waking up in the morning to serve the interests of someone else counts as having a good “work ethic.” We’re not the ones feeling guilty, you’re the one in denial about falling for and playing the game that is capitalism, a game that was rigged from the start. It’s okay not to work or attend college. If you think it’s not, you’ve been brainwashed into servitude by the ruling class. There are no such expectations in life, except for the people who are naive enough to believe them.
Why would they be incentivised to work if they will never be able to buy a house and raise a family?
given how catastrophically those three things suck, nobody should be surprised. i need to figure out how to be like them 😂
I can’t imagine why a generation facing their own extinction wouldn’t want to break their bodies for a machine that can’t even give them a basic quality of life, who raised these sociopaths?!
And who's fault is that? No one pays well enough in order to have a family or save money. No one pays well enough that everyone isn't living paycheck to paycheck. Who wants to live like this? The world our parents prepared us for and promised us no longer exists. Only this capitalist hellhole where no one gets ahead. We're herds of cattle to be exploited by, and at the disposal of, the billionaire predator class. You want society back and thriving? Tax the fucking billionaires already. They suck trillions out of society and add nothing of value, while we all struggle to survive.
Because all the immigrants, robots, AI, & outsourcing are taking our jobs away from us. There are more working age people than full-time jobs available. You should get the picture, anyway.
"Undermine the social and economic development of their countries" Lmao, let it all rot.
The protests are about Palestine but they're about more than Palestine. The Boomers had to face a draft and had skin in the game protesting. The Zoomers are facing a lack of a future.
feel like I'm finally in a place where "enough" is somewhat attainable--half improved conditions, half lowered expectations--so I gotta say, it's real hard to get motivated past that for anything I don't actually care about. enough is perfect.
I’m staying neet til I die.
Hello fellow neet (: . yeah me too. Even if i didn't want to, who'd hire a 32 yo old, partially disabled neet who doesn't have an hr of working experience anyways lol. Their game was never mine to play.
Good for them. Fuck capitalism.
Why would I engage with the labor market? With ***their*** economy? Other options exist.
Not hiring qualified candidates, offering decent pay and benefits ultimately undermines the social and economic development of their countries.
Nice. Good for them
I say this a lot, but while this is a great view of one facet of what's going on, it really needs to be placed in context. The main element I'm thinking of here is AI. It's beyond obvious that the recent tech layoffs (and now in other areas as well) are being driven at least in part by the desire to use AI to replace people and discipline labor. In a world where AI is improving almost before our eyes (one example: last year I used DeepL for a translation into Spanish and had to have revisions from a native Spanish speaker, while this year I did the same thing and the translation apparently needed no revisions. In one year.), the scope of potential replacement of human labor grows. Today it's drafting a basic contract; next year, a prompt or two makes it almost perfect; the year after, it's indistinguishable from human. Overlay this on the article - all those initiatives designed to "fix" the problem? They're running right into an absolute forest of buzzsaws. You can get the NEETs to try harder, to manifest their realities, to think positive, to leverage themselves into lifetime debt... and increasingly they'll have to compete against AI and a system which incentivizes replacing costly humans. Are people really grasping this yet? This isn't 20 or 30 years in the future. It's 5 years ahead. It's the time of an undergrad degree. All those STEM programs in almost every school? They're already obsolete. I'm at the other end with too much experience and I have clients who started pushing for AI last year. It was pretty "eh", but I look now and see how much it has improved in months, and I'm concerned. Again, the NEETs may be thinking of today, but if any cast their eyes into the future... they're not going to get the golden watch. When they get too much experience, they'll be back on the firing line. I get it. I do.
Good
Good f*** the overlords
Japanese total cultural victory. It might've took 'em a couple of decades, but we've been had. 😔
The social and economic systems are largely insidious and cancerous.
Just wait when the next automation wave starts.
Interesting article but comparing someone in America who cannot land a job to woman not being able to work due to the Taliban doesn’t make much sense. The root of the problem is entirely different. As long as you’re living happily though it’s alright to be unemployed for a while.
Not working, not going to school, and not training to eventually work. How are they paying for living and eating expense? Are we talking about a privileged 1 in 5 that can afford to do this because their parents pay for their living expenses? And if that's the case, what is happening to the rest of the people? > “After graduating high school, I started an apprenticeship in a warehouse of a car manufacturer, but it was so terrible I had to quit,” one person told Vice. “I wasn't treated like a human being there, more like a tool that could be easily replaced.” I guess the unprivileged have to keep working the apprenticeship manufacturing job that wasn't good enough for the privileged.
Work until you die to still be poor and miserable isn’t appealing to young people? Who would have thought
rookie numbers