A Blog for Job Snobs

01 August 2009

Labor Senator Mark Arbib and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner's recent comments suggesting that Generation Y are being Job Snobs reminds us that there is always political capital in labelling today's young as being lazy. Such throw away lines have been said for hundreds of years and are always off the mark.

Eight years ago, then employment minister Tony Abbott donned the phrase 'Job Snobs' and he was howled down in protest by then Labor leader Kim Beazley. How things change now that Labor are in power.

The deriding of youth is ever popular and wonderfully parodied in 1994 in the D Generation's comedy Frontline. Google the subject and you will find that since time and memorial those in authority have loved questioning the work ethic of 'today's youth'. Whilst this deriding may be politically popular, it is hardly constructive; it just perpetuates the myth that Generation Y is somehow lazier than previous generations.

It is interesting to see the leader of Australia's forces in Iraq Jim Molan declare that Generation Y troops uphold the values of the Australian Army as well – if not better – then previous generations. It is a shame our politicians do not refer to statements such as these when talking about the young.

Maybe American Poet Kenneth Roxroth put it best back in the 1940's "When the newspapers have got nothing else to talk about, they cut loose on the young. The young are always news. If they are up to something, that's news. If they aren't, that's news too".

Governments are elected to govern for all and demonising on the basis of age is simplistic and wrong. After all it is our generation who will be paying of the debts that older generations have racked up along with paying the pensions of our aging population. There is another age old adage which should be remembered and that is about biting the hand that feeds.