Global Unemployment

This conversation sets the stage for the show.

• Overview of the challenges that millions of young people face getting and advancing in the work place
• The hosts experience and style
• Some of what you can expect from future episodes

Thank you for listening!

Transcript

Todd: Hi there, I'm Todd Jensen and welcome to the world of work. Right now, all over the world, there are millions of unemployed or underemployed young people. They have ambition and drive to do more. And I'm talking about people with qualifications and a willingness to work. So what's holding them back? Why are so many unemployed or underemployed? We discuss these things with an eye to giving practical help on this show. Welcome. for this first episode, I want to dive into the problem a little more and tell you my background on how this show can help being in a situation where you have all this bursting eagerness, training energy and nowhere to put it to work is very frustrating. That's the unemployment side, but it's also discouraging to start in a job only to feel soon that There are a bunch of doors that you just don't seem to have the right key to get through. That's the under employed side of this problem. According to data from the global NGOs, non government organizations, that track, this kind of thing, there are about 65 million unemployed young people. Groups like the world bank and the world economic forum typically consider ages between 16 and 24 to be young people in their definition. But the more worrisome number for that same group within these same organizations is their estimate that one in five young people, that's 20 % of global, the global youth population are, called NEET, N-E-E-T, not employed or in training. That's a troublesome number and I've met some of these people and I want to be helpful in parts of the world where I've worked. Young women discouraged from participating in the workforce. So that influences some those numbers, especially in those geographies. But overwhelmingly, my experience has shown that a very large number of eager, talented. qualified and hardworking people are without work or in work that is well below their qualification. Young and not so young. is important. It's important to provide for yourself and for those who depend on you. It's a way of developing ability, confidence and social skill. It's your access point to so many good things that life has to offer, regardless of where you are in life, no where you live. When your ability to work or to provide is limited or threatened, it hits you right here, right in the pit of your stomach. it can generate a great deal of fear, frustration, and self-doubt. If you see this in others or you've experienced this kind of thing at one time or another in your career, then I think this show is for you. Before I talk about my experience, Let me address my view on why this problem exists. think there are four broad areas. I'll start with the highest economic concept and then get down to where we all live, which is the actual getting and working in a job. So why is global unemployment so high? First of all, there are not enough jobs for everyone in every country. This is an economic reality. But we'll discuss I do occasional shows breaking down the employment situation in different countries, why this is never static. Rather just throw up our hands and turn away because the job market where you live is tight. I'll talk about things you can watch for and pay attention to in the economic data and in the economic news. to take advantage of movements in the economy and seize your opportunities before others do. Your economic, your country's economic situation is a big reason the plenty or scarcity of jobs. Number there are ⁓ real to discovering the best fitting opportunity. All of the different job boards and individual company postings multiplied by the differences and complexities in each country and industry make it very difficult to have visibility into jobs you qualify for that are open. Some services are better than others, but my experience is that when you're, I'm coming from the United States, I'm considered to be in a mature economy. The whole landscape ⁓ postings and boards and LinkedIn and all these other elements. just chaotic and difficult to get a handle and to get precision on you match ⁓ against marketplace of open and available ⁓ jobs. this is why people say your best strategy is to network, to just, you know, friends and people that you're associated with or that know your abilities and have them looking for you or have them advocating for you if a position opens up in their company that you're interested in. That's effective. That's how nations run their intelligence gathering business. They deploy agents and spies all over the world gather information and to consolidate it and present it to ⁓ the leaders of your country to say, here's what's happening, here's where it's going. Well, in that world, they deploy a lot of intelligence, a lot of technology, a lot of people, a of agents, and they still don't always get it right, or they still don't always see what's going on. So it's a big, complicated problem. And I don't have a solution for that problem, but we'll talk about the kinds of things that can help the kinds of intelligence gathering practices that might make a difference for you having better visibility into where those jobs are. The third reason is the odds are stacked against you, even if you are qualified. So we're all seeing the news these days of all the AI generated. cover letters and resumes going in and companies, it was already bad with a company receiving four or 500 or thousands of applications for one single job or position in their company. So they're using blunt tools to try to sort and prioritize what these are. And these things don't really have a great bearing on who's most qualified for the job. They're just HR groups trying to sort through and take the best guess at who might make the top cut who's going to get in. And AI is going to make that an interesting situation watch and to see how that develops. But right now ⁓ and in the near future, when you go to apply for a job, the odds are stacked against you. And ⁓ talk some of the things that might help improve those odds. but your performance in any other job that you've had is probably the most important factor that will help you when the odds are stacked in ⁓ application situation. And then we'll get down to the fourth ⁓ which is the practical, ⁓ day-to-day sort of experience of what you do. ⁓ with the job that you do get, or if you have a job and you're stuck in it, what you do about that. The first three deal with the availability of these jobs. This one deals with what you do with what you have, even if it isn't greatest job or if it isn't the greatest opportunity, how you perform and how you, how ⁓ act in job makes a huge difference ⁓ for of these other opportunities that you might get. And we'll spend a lot of time here. Well, let me conclude with my background and why I care about this. I've worked with and helped some of the best people in the world, all over the world. I've held senior leadership roles in both large bureaucratic organizations small, fast rising, fast moving ⁓ companies, both with global projects. ⁓ that were in my scope of responsibility in these roles. was involved directly with teams in China, Philippines, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Vietnam, Mexico, and more. I also worked for years on with the world bank on a youth employment initiative in Pakistan. And that taught me a lot. I made a lot of visits to that country. In other, another project, ⁓ was really an adventure. Um, I did some contract work developing partnerships all over the continent of Africa for a very large tech centered field research project. And I'll share specific examples from all of these different experiences throughout the show. I said earlier that I've worked with some of the best people in the world, some strong CEOs and leaders, as well as a host of young people who are determined to succeed. But I've also worked with some of the worst leaders in the world. you can identify. If you think this show is going to be about, you know, have a positive attitude and you'll be all right and everything was smooth for me, so why can't it be smooth for you? Well, you're wrong. What I to be missing in many of the young people that I worked with over the years is that they didn't have someone in their university or early jobs that helped them know how work. works. They didn't know what to do when they got a really terrible leader as their boss or they were confused when they thought that they were doing great work, but gradually it became clear that some other people were favored no one was really looking at objective criteria when judging their performance. Some of you are listening to this ⁓ and not have very good employees ⁓ or either. and ⁓ face it, sometimes your work ⁓ the problem. I'm also not going to sit here and tell you that everything you do is just magical and beautiful. And it's always someone else's fault that you're not succeeding in your work. No, sometimes your work is the problem. Sometimes your communication is problem. We'll talk that. Everyone may have been nice to you in all the other roles you've had in your life when you were very young and patted you on the head and told you that you're a good job, but all of a sudden you were put into a larger organization and those young supervisors didn't know how to correct behavior or didn't know how to manage production. And so they just gave you a thumbs up and said, Hey, you're doing a great job. then management came and said, I need you to rank all these people ⁓ we're going to let the bottom % go. And all of sudden you find you're in the bottom 20 % when you thought you were doing a great job. Those are the kinds of realities ⁓ you're facing and dealing with. ⁓ ⁓ if you stick with in episodes, I'll help you through things like that. I'll help you do things like see that you must take responsibility for your performance not just rely on. the feedback from your immediate boss. are the kind of things that I can help with. how the world of work ⁓ really works. ⁓ Join ⁓ I forward to journey with you.