‘This is our ability to eat and sleep under a roof’: Young jobseeker speaks out on tough job market

A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell made an argument about where a society goes when it produces generation after generation of people who cannot find stable work, cannot own homes, and cannot retire.

“Learn what tends to happen to a nation when it’s full of jobless, hopeless, angry young people,” the original poster wrote. “Then consider that we’re going on three generations — millennials, zoomers, and soon Gen Alpha — who largely will never own a home or retire.”

They directed their message explicitly at those making excuses for the job market, saying that it’s an individual issue. “Getting a job is not an abstract game to us like hiring is to you. This is our ability to eat and sleep under a roof. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be next year, but eventually we’re all gonna stop trying to be desperately hireable and get desperately pissed instead.”

The argument is not a personal threat. It is a historical one. It is not without precedent.

What Reddit said

The thread engaged with the structural argument more seriously than most job market posts generate.

One commenter brought their own situation to bear: they have a master’s degree that makes them overqualified for minimum wage work, watching peers advance in careers and family life while feeling completely stuck.

Another offered the most psychologically useful observation in the thread: “I think for a lot of people it’s a defence mechanism. As long as they believe it’s an individual problem, they can keep believing that they can avoid falling victim to this meat grinder just by being ‘better’.”

One commenter delivered a depressing assessment: “Unfortunately, nothing will happen until a sufficient amount of Americans run out of their treats.”

And one offered a more sceptical read of the Reddit-as-outlet phenomenon: “All the angry young men are s***posting on Reddit instead of rioting downtown. Karma farming ultimately won’t help your job prospects.”

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