Yesterday, I was holed up in my office when I heard a knock on the door. It was a NINJA coming to call. Not a real dressed in black, sword toting NINJA, but a NINJA never the less. This NINJA was a young attorney I'd interviewed and placed in a contract position at my old job as an attorney recruiter. I was surprised, but pleased to see her.
NINJA was interviewing for a position with my current company. In my former role I'd tried especially hard to find NINJA another position following the contract gig, but there just wasn't anything out there. NINJA had good reviews from her contract supervisor. She was well educated, bright, personable, attractive and just aggressive enough to be a go-getter without being obnoxious. But still, more than 6 months later, NINJA still hadn't found anything. Nothing. NADA.
We'd gotten to be friends, of a sort, over the last year or so. NINJA had a seat and started to tell me her troubles. "There are THOUSANDS of us out there." she recounted. "Only two of my friends (attorneys) have forgotten permanent jobs and for far less pay than they're worth." All this from a young woman who I view as EXTREMELY hireable. With a JD, no less. Desperation shone in her face.
I told her what I could. I knew she'd hate the job with my company if she was lucky enough to get it. It was basically paper shuffling for almost no pay and would not translate into the kind of experience that would further her legal career. The whole time I felt like a big fat fraud. Because she was right. No matter how smart, capable, personable, educated and attractive there are no jobs. At least not for the 20 -somethings.
Its not just the legal field, either. Its everywhere. Almost every industry is facing the same crisis. And sister, let me tell you its a crisis. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national unemployment rate on 3/4/11 was 8.9%, but for teenagers, the rate was more than double that at 23.9%. This figure includes only teens who were actively in the job market, not full time students etc. www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm.
This particular NINJA was ahead of the game too. At least she'd had a job. She could provide some sort of references. Many can't even get out of the gate. Finding your first job has never been easy, but now its practically impossible.
NINJA recounted that she'd pursued every ad. She'd attended multiple networking events. No luck.
I thought about her all the way home. Her raw need had influenced me when I first spoke to her about a year ago. She had the initiative to pick up the phone and call me from a neighboring city practically begging (demanding?) her first job. I had a rare opening and took a chance. It paid off. For a contract position, NINJA had moved on 2 or 3 days notice, found housing near her assignment, and completely relocated. Our difficult-to-please client was very happy with her work. NINJA put in long hours with no complaint. She made money, but not nearly what she was worth in a better economy. Still no permanent offer. She went from project to project until she landed up on my doorstep.
There is a generation of NINJA's out there. Many are polite, well educated and respectful. How long is that going to last though, if they see that no matter what they do, their shot of getting even just a DECENT job is practically nil?
This really scares me. Lack of employment for new graduates seems to have been the catalyst for the recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. A newscast yesterday even cast doubt on Saudi Arabia's continuing prospects, likening the country to Iran five years before the Shah fell.
Lack of jobs is a threat to stability worldwide. Wonder how long til we start to see it spreading to our own back yards? Friends (teachers) attended rallies this weekend to protect their collective bargaining rights. They made signs and protested in the rain. Rallies? Really? In the rain? Its all so 1970's and not in a good way.
The current financial crisis was first publicly marked by Iceland's inability to maintain debt levels. "Poor Iceland" and "What the hell were those people thinking?" were the prevailing sentiments. But hey, it was Iceland, so no biggie? Right? Well, right, that is until the crisis started to spread. Then we heard about the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain). Then BAM critical mass and we're all in the soup! The USsub came to the crisis with the subprime mortgage crisis and unemployment rates unprecedented in the X and Y generations' lifetimes.
I was wondering how long it would be before the unemployment crisis ended up on my doorstep. Maybe that was the wakeup call. It did, with the advent of NINJA, yesterday. How long before idleness turns to activism and anarchy spreads to Nashvegas? OR is it already here? In six months will there be riots in the streets when the latest round of grads wakes up and smells the coffee. They are the NINJA generation. I don't want to have my Gen X ass kicked by a NINJA. I'm just saying.
Also the divide between rich and poor is growing. The middle class is disappearing beneath a wave of unemployment , subprime foreclosures, and sheer hopelessness. Not to say it wasn't time for a "correction", but the harshness and desperation evident amount the very youngest of our workforce is frightening.
So let me take a time out to explain the concept of NINJA, this term that I'm just throwing around. According to Wikipedia, the term was first coined around 2008 during the subprimemortgage boom to describe a particular type of loan - No Income, No Job, No Assets. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2785403/Ninja-loans-explode-on-sub-prime-frontline.html It was both an acronym and an allusion to the fact that some of these borrowers had a tendency to simply disappear like ninjas in the night. Its increasingly being applied to the X and Y generations.
It looks like the term started to take off in popular culture with the release of Wall Street 2. Gordon Gecko refers to his audience of college students as the NINJA generation. Its a sad day when Gordon Gecko, a fictional character, puts his finger on the zietgeist of a nation, a culture. Here is his speech from Wall Street 2:
"You’re all pretty much fu****. You don’t know it yet. But, you are the NINJA generation. No Income, No Job, No Assets. You got a lot to live for too. Someone reminded me the other evening that I once said greed is good. Now it seems its legal. But folks, its greed that makes my bartender buy three houses he can’t afford with no money down. And it's greed that makes your parents refinance their two hundred thousand dollar house for two fifty. Then they take that extra fifty and go down to the mall. They buy a plasma TV, cell phones, computers, a SUV, hey why not a second home while we are it, cause gee whiz we all know the prices of houses in America always go up, right?
And its greed that makes the government of this country cut interest rates down to one percent after 9/11 so we can all go shopping again. And they got all these fancy names for trillions of dollars of credits, CMOs, CDOs, SIVs, ABS . You know I honestly think that there’s maybe only seventy five people in the world who know what they are. But I’ll tell you what they are - WMDs, weapons of mass destruction! That’s what they are.
When I was away, it seems greed got greedier with a little bit of envy mixed in. Hedge funders were walking home with fifty, hundred million bucks a year. So Mister Banker, he looks around and says my life looks pretty boring. So he starts leveraging his interests up to forty, fifty to one, with your money, not his, yours, because he could. You’re supposed to be borrowing not them. And the beauty of the deal, no one is responsible. Because everyone is drinking the same Kool-aid.
Last year ladies and gentlemen, forty percent of all American corporate profits came from financial services. Not production, not anything remotely to do with the needs of the American public. The truth is we are all part of it now. Banks, consumers, we’re moving the money around in circles. We take a buck, we shoot it full of steroids. We call it leverage. I call it steroid banking.
Gecko ends his speech purporting to have all the answers. All you have to do is buy his book. So if there were a a book to buy, I would. But this is a movie, the book doesn't exist and I don't see anyone else proposing a solution.
If they (X and Y and NINJA) get pissed off enough, I fear it may be time to refer to another film, this one much much older. I just hope everyone over thirty doesn't end up as Soilent Green.
YouTube clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE
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