It's called communism Squeers, & it has failed. Yes your ideas are communistic, & proven failures in the real world.

If I want to hire kids, or oldies that is my business, & no one else's. That goes double for twits who think they know it all, & want to dictate to the rest of us.

I wonder how anyone could get the facts of life across to such as you.

First is if someone studies a useless course at university, discuss it with the fool student, & perhaps the institution promoting useless courses.

Secondly a few facts about job availability. My 21 year old daughter moved to Darwin recently. She had the choice of 4 jobs in the first week, & she has only a couple of diplomas to her name.

A neighbours son, age 19, on my sons suggestion, signed up with the navy. He will be trained as a marine engineer, & power house operator. He dropped the boat builder apprenticeship he had found wanting.

In the 2 months he was waiting to start navy training, he was offered 4 full time jobs, & was earning over $1000 a week with a plastering company. They begged him to stay. I could go on, but the story is always the same.

Meanwhile a couple of the same age neighbourhood kids are still unemployed & bitching about having to attend "useless" training courses.

So get rid of that bleeding heart violin, & start using the steel cap work boot, it will do more good getting work shy yobbos into work, degreed on not.

Australia has exactly the same problem as America. Too many
qualified as little then burger flippers, whilst those with skills
need to be brought in from overseas, to meet the demand.

Perhaps parents should get serious about helping their kids gain
some useful qualifications, like mechanics, truck drivers, accountants,
chefs, electricians, welders and all the rest.

No Squeers, we don't need more philosophers lol, I meant real
jobs with real qualifications.

Even farming today relies largely on backpackers and 457 workers,
as Aussies don't want the jobs. Parents are to blame, they have
brought up a bunch of spoiled brats with expectations so high,
that they simply don't want to bother with alot of jobs.

I popped into my local farm supply store the other day. They
have 6 branches, 5 of them are looking for staff.
Oops, if jobs are not 20 minutes from where we live, best not
to bother.

Hasbeen,
I think I'm as entitled to an opinion as you are? I'm not dictating to anyone, and I make my point with argument rather than name-calling

Yabby:
<Parents are to blame, they have
brought up a bunch of spoiled brats with expectations so high,
that they simply don't want to bother with alot of jobs>

Gees, Yabby, where have I heard that before? The older generation has been projecting onto their kids forever! You mean the spoiled brats who man the take away stores and do all the other menial labour the spoiled middle classes take for granted and wouldn't do themselves? How dare young people aspire to something better than fruit-picking or checkout operators, or something more stimulating or idealistic than raking in the doe working underground--ingrates and dreamers! They should pull emselves up by the bootstraps like we did, eh?
I tell you what, why don't we teach them a real lesson and the over fifties give up their six figure salaries and company cars and all the other perks and show them how to be fulfilled assembling Big Macs and putting-up with condescending customers? And the kids can take their jobs and see how they cope with the awful pressures and working conditions the well-healed workers put up with? At least if it turns out we're the spoiled brats we can quit and enjoy our superannuation packages and share portfolios.
I don't deny ours is a spoiled country, utterly decadent in fact, but the youngens have got nothing on their "betters" when it comes to that!

Yabby, to take a case in point. Electricians. On the skills shortage list for years. Guess what? You can go to trade school, you can do a pre-apprenticeship, but there are only a handful of apprenticeships. In the meantime we continue to import qualified electricians, year after year. Sure, kids should do whatever they can to be working, we've all done crappy jobs to get started. But if there is no hope they will ever do anything but crappy jobs because they are locked out of the trades, what are we supposed to tell them? Go overseas and get qualified? Businesses that consistently import skills should also have a responsibility to train up the next generation. Or we should change the training methodology so they don't need an apprenticeship that doesn't exist. It is a sad day when we make our own kids the lowest paid workers for life (if they are lucky enough to get a job - the older they get the more difficult it is) and import highly paid people from overseas to fill vacancies. Not everyone is cut out to be an accountant.

*How dare young people aspire to something better than fruit-picking or checkout operators, or something more stimulating or idealistic than raking in the doe working underground*

No Squeers, its about learning life experiences, starting at the
bottom and working your way up. You might have gotten life on a plate
but I certainly did not. I still remember when a builder put a shovel
in my hand, when I was a teenager and said " here sonny, get moving"
It taught me heaps and was character building.

Some time ago I did the same to a 16 year old lout, whose mother
claimed that he wanted some work. I got him to help a group of
us mixing concrete, he did half of what everyone else did. That
afternoon his mother rang me. "What have you done to my baby?" Err
for the first time in his life, he learnt what a shovel was.

You might earn 6 figures, I don't. As a matter of fact I'm nearly
60 and was still mixing a bit of concrete this morning, it does you
no harm.

*Or we should change the training methodology*

Absolutaly the methodology needs changing. If parents don't
insist on it, it won't happen. Your kids are your responsibility and
the best thing that you can do for them, is make sure that they
learn something beyond burger flipping. If you don't, I hope that
they hold you to account, when they later realise that you failed
as a parent.

Squeers,
From my viewpoint I'd say that many of those who go to man those menial positions as you say, only a handful think further ahead then next payday. many do that work because they find it below them to do an apprenticeship for a lot less money then at Macca's.
Then, when those who finally completed an apprenticeship & start making a dollar then those who ave been working at Macca's whine about not getting any opportunities. The defence force has literally thousands of positions in hundreds of fields but how many take up the offer ? Or how many are suited to take up the offer ? That's the question we should be asking.
We all want to do better but are we prepared to put in the hard yards ? No, of course not.
Then there is always the question of luck in getting a top job. No-one thinks about that because people who achieve are lucky & those who don't aren't. Quite often it's just plain & simple luck & we can't legislate against bad luck or can we ?