Three older millennials describe how their dreams have been thwarted by the bad luck of being in the only cohort to face two economic downturns
Elena Sosa Lerín did everything right after graduating from King’s College, in Halifax, in 2006. She got a job right away. She paid off her student debt. She quickly climbed the ladder in her chosen field. Two years after leaving King’s, with a degree in political science and journalism, she was managing a bilingual magazine in Seoul, South Korea. “I was feeling great,” she said. And then she decided to go back to school.
Those effects are pretty consistent across recessions, with a lot of demographic variance and some wiggle room up and down depending on the size of the crater, according to researchers. But the cohort that graduated into the Great Recession is now facing another, unprecedented hurdle. Just as their careers should be stabilizing, as the losses they absorbed in their first decade of work should be easing, they’ve been hit by a second economic calamity.
Over the past week, the National Post spoke to more than a dozen Canadians who started their careers in and around the Great Recession of 2008/2009 to get a sense of what they’re facing now and of how the past decade has shaped their lives and careers. These are three of their stories.Their comments have been edited for clarity, grammar and space.I born and raised in west-side Toronto. So I’m very Toronto-centric.
It’s been hard. I’ve been breaking down like this every so often. I know that as a family we’re going be fine. I know my friends are going to be fine. I just think, taking on this business, which has already has been such a burden for me and my family, has really taken a hit on all of us. I ended up getting a temp job with the federal government in December of 2009. But instead of getting paid whatever I should have been getting paid, you know, 30 bucks an hour, I started out on that first contract, making $10.25, working for the federal government. They ended up hiring me onto a contract and then I was kicked right back out the door again. So I went back into the temp agencies and I ended up working a couple of temp contracts.
So in some ways, we’ve already been through this. This isn’t a new thing. So it doesn’t keep me up at night. I’m not wringing my hands about it, but it doesn’t make me feel good going asleep either, I’ll put it that way. It’s like a game of snakes and ladders. Just you finally start feeling good about something, then you’re right back down to zero. That just seems to be the cycle.
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