The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Recession hurts entry-level jobs
‘Rock-star professions’ bank on cheap labor, low pay helping profits.
Every generation has its own anthem of making the journey from youthful naivete to adult reality, whether it’s Neil Young’s “Old Man,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or most recently, perhaps, the Taylor Swift song “22.”
“Tonight’s the night when we forget about the deadlines,” it goes. “It feels like one of those nights, we won’t be sleeping.”
If only it were as easy for Swift’s less-affluent contemporaries to blow off their deadlines as it is for the singer-songwriter (now a slightly more seasoned 23). Sleepless nights are more likely because they are on the clock, not at the club.
“If I’m not at the office, I’m always on my BlackBerry,” said Casey McIntyre, 28, a book publicist in New York. “I never feel like I’m totally checked out of work.”
McIntyre is just one 20something — a population historically exploitable as cheap labor — learning that long hours and low pay go hand in hand in the creative class.
“We need to hire a 22-2222,” one new-media manager was overheard saying recently, meaning a 22-year-old willing to work 22-hour days for $22,000 a year. Perhaps the middle figure is an exaggeration, but its bookends certainly aren’t.
According to a 2011 Pew report, the median net worth for householders under 35 dropped by 68 percent from 1984 to 2009, to $3,662. Lest you think that’s a mere side effect of the economic down- turn, for those over 65, it rose 42 percent to $170,494 (largely because of an overall gain in property values). Hence 1.2 million more 25-to-34-yearolds lived with their parents in 2011 than did four years earlier.
“The notion of the traditional entry-level job is disappearing,” said Ross Perlin, 29, the author of “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy.”
Internships have replaced them, he said.
Once a short-term commitment at most, internships have become an obligatory rite of passage that often drags on for years.
“Particularly in some rockstar professions — film and TV and publishing and media — companies are pushing the envelope to see how much they can get out of young people for how low a stipend or salary,” Perlin said. “And people are desperate enough to break in to do it.”
That’s what Katherine Myers, 27, found when she graduated from college in 2008. After months of searching, she landed a position as a development coordinator at a cable channel in New York.
“I was willing to put up with anything,” she said. “I never took a lunch, I came in early, I worked late.” Her two friends were not. “For a year we never saw” one friend. “He’d get up at 5, be there till 1 a.m., fall asleep at work.”
The other friend left for law school after four months.
“I think she thought it made no sense,” Myers said. “You have to have a feeling that you’re doing something good for the world, and that’s hard to come up with in some jobs. If you’re a doctor or lawyer, or even in finance, you can justify it. But if you’re in fashion, it’s like, ‘Oh, boy, who cares?’”