As graduation season kicks off and summer approaches, I've been seeing a lot of articles about kids being too busy for summer jobs. 

A recent Time magazine article reports,

"It was once common to see teenagers mowing lawns, waiting tables, digging ditches and bagging groceries for modest wages in the long summer months.  Summer employment was a social equalizer, allowing both affluent and financially strapped teenagers to gain a foothold on adulthood, learning the virtues of hard work, respect and teamwork in a relatively low-stakes atmosphere.  But youth employment has declined precipitously over the years, and young people are losing a chance to develop these important life skills in the process."

The article goes on to say "more than 50 percent of the nation's young workforce has never held a basic, paying job.  We may be postponing their entry into adulthood."

As the article makes clear, our kids are not prepared for the real world.  They lack the necessary skills to move up the professional ladder: perseverance, flexibility, humility, and commitment. 

One reason they don't know about commitment is that "shack-ups" have increased.  Our kids haven't learned about humility because we live in an environment where parents sue their school if their kid doesn't get an "A," or wasn't chosen to be on the football or basketball team.  How can children learn humility when their failures are elevated to jurisprudence concepts?          

It's basically the elders who are responsible for our kids' incompetence.  It's grownups who don't make their kids learn values or appropriate expectations.  They don't teach them how to take advantage of opportunities.  We do a lousy job of getting our kids ready for the real world because we're teaching them their esteem is more important than their effort.

In addition, a survey conducted by the Corporate Voices for Working Families found that

"nearly three-quarters of survey participants (70 percent) cite deficiencies among incoming high school graduates in 'applied' skills, such as professionalism and work ethic, defined as 'demonstrating personal accountability, effective work habits, e.g. punctuality, working productively with others, time and workload management.'  More than 40 percent of surveyed employers say incoming high school graduates hired are deficiently prepared for the entry-level jobs they fill. The report finds that recent high school graduates lack the basic skills in reading comprehension, writing and math, which many respondents say were needed for successful job performance."

I guess if you've spent your time sexting and playing video games, you're not going to be good in reading comprehension, writing, and math.            

The study also found that nearly three-quarters of incoming high school graduates are viewed as not being able to use reasonable grammar and spelling.  Their written communication is horrible, and they can't write memos, letters, or complex technical reports. 

Critical thinking, problem solving, and the ability to express oneself are no longer being taught in school.  Do you know why?  Because we have women's studies, Black studies, Hispanic studies, purple studies, green studies, etc.  We have all kinds of studies for advocacy groups which have no place in our basic education system.  These studies should all be extracurricular subjects and should have no relevance to graduating with a degree. If you haven't read the classics and you haven't thought through profound concepts and essays, then you're not educated.  All these studies simply involve being angry about something and putting your fist in the air.  This is why our ranking in science and math is below a lot of third world countries.  We should be number one. 

These are just some of the many things bothering employers these days, but it mainly comes down to this: they're dealing with snot-nosed upstarts with a sense of entitlement.    

For more on this topic, here is a link to some skills most sought after by employers.