Now you can have a degree, graduate with honors, have great work references and only be able to work a minimum wage job. There are people with master's degrees competing for low paying jobs.

When my in-laws were our age they said they could leave a job on Friday and start a new job on Monday! They were not exaggerating. They literally did that. Now you can spend years applying for jobs.

My husband is a veteran who was honorably discharged, has two degrees with honors etc. etc. and can't get a better job anywhere. His job is decent and mid level but it is extremely stressful and underpaid for the level of responsibility. It is also corrupt. He has been trying for years to get out.

So sorry for his stress - and the corruption! That can't be easy to abide. Nor can it be good to feel stuck, when you really need to go.

Here in Australia, there are some professionals that are struggling more than others - and it changes from season to season depending on market forces. Right now it's engineers. There was a time due to the boom in certain areas of the mining sector, that they could take their pick of stable, well-paying jobs and lucrative FIFO contracts. Now these are drying up, they are looking to get into non-engineering areas, or moving abroad for opportunities.

On degrees - my returning to uni was a great help to being able to change train tracks. And we certainly have a lot of mature age students who do that here. Our Gov subsidises a good portion of each Commonwealth funded place at uni, and offers very flexible repayment options on the remainder. So this probably makes the decision to return to uni for employement's sake, easier than it is for many in the US.

That said, our Masters by coursework (not by research) degrees are a bit of a money mill, and little more than 'undergrad for grownups,' minus the core sequence of a Bachelor. Our Defence force pays for the study of its members, so there is a glut of service members with such masters. Some with 2-3 of them. Will they make a difference when transitioning to a civilian workforce? Not on their own.

Many areas of our public service are also having interesting discussions about the diversity of their work-forces, which have for new intakes, traditionally favoured a younger workforce. They are recognising that a balanced diverse workforce also takes in newstarters like your husband, with his many years of experience.

Your in-laws are lucky to recall such times of effortless job hunting! Growing up in a poor family as a kid in the 70s, there was no such thing for us, though there may have been for others. We were stranded in a certain socioeconomic swamp, and our opportunities (or lack of) determined for us. That took some weird effort to break out of.

I think it can be hard for people to understand sometimes, that opportunities are not evenly dispersed across society. Access and equity can be shaped by a lot of factors outside of an individual's control.

That maybe... there's nothing wrong with you... it's the system.

Hi Ivy,

thank you for the lengthy comment, I like those :)
I also have a problem with the word 'millennial' - sometimes it just paints young people as lazy and entitled, wanting everything now but not willing to put in effort - but I only used it to refer to a certain age range.

As you say, the borders between generations are very vague and putting everyone under the same blanket of a vast population doesn't account for the different life circumstances of each individual.

Thanks for sharing your experience of growing up in poor conditions, what life lessons you have learned are indeed invaluable!

And I totally agree that we can re-invent ourselves as many times as we want! Nothing is set in stone, personalities and identities are fluent; we are not the same person we were 5 years ago or even 5 months ago.

I learnt not to base my self-worth on a job title, so it's not that I feel like a failure personally. It's just frustrating because I need the money to propel myself in the next life phase. But I remind myself that this is not a delay and I'm not "stuck".

We have to be grateful for what we have and for our current position in life, and then we can work towards our dreams and life changes positively and attract something better. We don't serve anybody if we are miserable and let external conditions put us down.

That said, I understand how privileged I am to have support from my family and a place to stay during these times :)

You are doing just fine! You will never be without solutions and opportunities because you're smart and creative.

I think the press was only just starting up with the whole gen-something nonsense when I was at uni the first time, in the early 90s. Gen-X we were told, were a bunch of cynical, ambition-less loafers.

But it was also observed, that the traditional job landscape had changed - so maybe there was less evidence of ambition because we did not want what we could not easily have?

Starting off in the creative arts industry, my cohort may have been more naturally predisposed to uncommon job arrangements, but those were the conditions evolving for everyone... and that trajectory really hasn't changed to the present day.

For sure, the support of loved ones is like secret sauce!

My in-laws never went to college or had professional jobs. They were loggers, had their own businesses etc. When they moved up here to Alaska they ran a lodge. They just don't understand how competitive this world is.

They didn't understand why I wanted a Master's Degree and they were inclined to think it was a waste of time and money. They understand a bit better now seeing their son struggle so much.

My mum has relatives here, who started businesses at a time when there was so little competition, they had it made. 'Why can't you just like we did...?' Eh, well, the game is a little bit different for your grandkids! Had they tried to start from scratch pulling the same moves now, the results would be *very* different.

Yes, I heard my husband on the phone with his Mom just this evening. She didn't understand that employers don't tell you why you didn't get a job after you interview now. They don't understand it is not just a personal one on one process between you and the interviewer.

Yup. Some of us wait months, and over a year to hear a result!

Hi Jessica, thanks for commenting :)

I get glimpses of your everyday life in Alaska through your blog posts and it's so interesting to me, life in such a special place. But I see how it's similar to other parts of the world too, regarding financial issues and the difficulty of getting a good job and work satisfaction!

I also feel like apartments are boxes we cage ourselves in; I'd love to own land as well or at least have a house with a garden/outdoors space. But that's for later, for the coming years I want to travel and live in different parts of the world and explore new countries and cultures :)

I'm in my mid-30s too and it can get exhausting having to justify your decisions to the older generation! I totally agree with your concerns about having kids - it's not a decision to be made lightly! If you can barely support yourselves, it would be very irresponsible to go on and have kids - I think they would add up to the financial stresses and you wouldn't enjoy the experience of parenthood as much as if you had them after being financially stable.

I really hope your endeavors will pay through, and your family realizes the goal of being financially free and move anywhere you want and start thinking about adding a member to your family :)

Thanks Nicky!

We want to adopt someday and that might be specifically from Columbia. I really feel like we need a house in order to do that! So we need to hurry up and get to that point! It makes sense to adopt siblings so they can stay together and then it is also a lot more affordable. It is often $30,000-$50,000 between fees and travel so doing that twice would be difficult!

So, we can't really adopt two kids while living in our little apartment anyway.

People are getting married later (we were both in our 30's already) and having kids much later, but the old stigmas remain.There are still stigmas about adopting too!

Thank you for taking the time to comment and sharing your situation with me!

I can only imagine how it must feel to work hard for a position for so long, one that you really want too, and then suddenly the bubble bursts and you have to start from scratch! It's a relief that you found a new job and you are focusing on the positive, even if it stings to deal with lesser pay and a downgrade.

I try to be stoic about it and think in terms of "everything happens for a reason" and maybe life is nudging me to another direction. I don't want to make decisions out of fear any more, but out of clarity of where I want to be headed for the long term.

Like you, I haven't been working as consistently here in WA, but I'm determined to change that after going yearly. A change in mindset was needed and I'm ready to commit and give it my all now, even if I won't have as much free time when I find a new job.

And yes, job security for our generation is a myth. What's more secure is to actually build something online that will generate you income for years to come, and invest some of the money on other venues - I will start investing in gold once I have an income again.

I wish you the best in finding a new job and hope one comes your way soon. Here's to our success at WA as well :)

Thank you! Kudos for being proactive and sending out resumes already. My last paycheck was back in May, when my teaching contract ended. Maybe I was over-confident that I would find something else easily; I wasn't applying as diligently as I should have!

With 30 years of experience it's fairly reasonable to assume you will get snatched up by another firm quickly :)
Good luck!