The skills gap – spoiler: it’s not your fault.

If you feel like you’re overeducated and underpaid, overqualified, and undervalued, you’re probably right to feel that way. More and more articles are talking about the new proclaimed cultural reference points for age and maturity; “25 is the new 21”, “30 is the new 20”. We are valuing our age and maturity differently, but economically, we aren’t feeling the benefits from this prolonged development. Housing is more expensive, wages are lower, whilst companies won’t invest in training, and this is only exacerbated as time goes on. So, we educate ourselves, over-qualify, just to get a look at for an internship, an associate job, or anything that our parents would have got 5 years younger than us with less qualifications. Why, despite all this, do younger generations get the stick for being “lazy, manipulates the system, wants to do nothing but go to Pilates and DJ”? We’re tired. That’s why. We had to achieve the best grades in high school to get into university, then pursue high-performing extracurricular activities, and continue this at a faster pace once we got into university. Oh, and yes, don't forget the part-time job to afford to live. The percentage of 25–34-year-olds in OECD* countries with university degrees grew from 27% in 2000 to over 47% in 2022. Without proper systems in place to ensure every student has an adequate job opportunity lined up for them after graduation, how could this not lead to a massive increase in competition? The generation of entrepreneurs from the 90s and 00s is now our employers, and don’t want employees who are doing anything but work for them. They came up in a period of rapid economic expansion of the 90s, whilst we came up in the “work or die” mindset of the 2010s. Step aside all those also studying and maintaining some sort of social calendar, because from their perspective, their dream deserves exhaustion by all those working for it. And so, they hire the older, more experienced person to do the younger person’s job and the cycle continues; we get more training to compete with said person, we get a side job to afford to live, and we get told that all hard work amounts to success while also being told that “30 is the new 20”, as if that doesn’t prolong this cycle of torturous self-improvement. This is the skills gap. Overqualified or wrongly qualified graduates are unable to meet the qualifications set by employers. Research shows that employees actually want more training in their jobs, but employers either don’t know how or just don’t value it as a source of investment despite the obvious long-term value. The under-30s subsequently feel distant from their predecessors, as the world we came up through and are in now seems incredibly distant from theirs. Now, we find more value in things outside of work, rich in emotional fulfilment. Workout classes, mid-week wine bars, new concept night clubs, long walks, an emotional support animal, roommates forever, a new hobby (a la the D.J. or long-distance runner). And more importantly, who can blame us? *OECD: The OECD has 38 member countries, mostly made up of advanced economies that are committed to democracy and market-based systems.