On economic cycles and youth unemployment...

Economy has its cycles, with it goes recession and unemployment by each generation at least once.

I still remember clearly one of the worst economic times, at the time, in 1990 in England. There were long lines waiting in government agency looking for work. By default, it's hard for overseas students to find proper/formal employment (not the under-the-table deals like working tables in Chinese restaurants when everything comes in cash, but you run the risk of immigration raid and you'll get kicked out of the country, if found). It's even harder at the time, since unemployment was more than 10%. I was lucky enough to have found part time employment at my university, supplementing that with typing thesis for graduate students.

The hard times continued when I arrived Australia in 1992. By the time my class in the university was looking for internship (which is one mandatory requirement for the bachelor degree), 98% of the class didn't get one. I was one of the lucky few to have found internship with an investment bank, which I stayed on and which provided me with the highest salary among my classmates.

While I have counted my stars and luck in all these past years, and I never really suffered those anxiety of looking for jobs amidst high unemployment, I know how it feels like.

By Providence, when I relocated to Boston in 1997, tides were running high. There was this charge of energy, as a result of the stock market bubble. It really did feel good. Of course we know how it turned out. The stock market bubble of tech stock burst in 2000, followed by recession for a couple of years.

And then we have this property market bubble burst in 2006-7, bank implosion in 2008, and terrible economy/recession that we're seeing now. I was reading Sydney Morning Herald, which predicts that Australia will go into recession in 2009. Among the first to suffer is the youthful generation, with high youth unemployment in the making.

It reminds me of how things were like in 1992 in Sydney. I hope this generation (around the world) will pull it through ok, as I did; although I know alot of people will invariably fall through the cracks, with broken dreams and lost promises. It makes me sad, thinking of those prospects.

I guess I've seen more than a handful of economic hard times now, so far. I'm sure there will be more to come. That much is for sure. One main thing I learn from all these years is that, I have to self-reliant, and have to be prepared to be adaptive and improve myself constantly.