To many it main seem logical and obvious, but when the University of Nicosia published the results of their survey, it hit home the fact that the disappointment of the youth is a blinking red light to the people in charge and those who were still pretending that all was good and happy.
The survey that was carried out on people aged 22-33 years old contained some of the same questions from the survey carried out in Athens earlier this year. The main fact it produced is that a massive majority of the youth are unhappy here and are willing to leave our shores due to the lack of : good jobs; trust in the political parties (komata); fairness in the government positions (corruption); and efficiency in dealing with the economic crisis’ implications on the Cypriot economy.
Some 25% of the youth would be interested in starting their own business, with 78% claiming they would take on a government job should they be available. On a side-note, I am still personally disappointed by the support of the local market and institutions for entrepreneurs who would eventually create more high quality jobs than the public sector, decreasing the ‘professional drought’ that is brought on by working conditions, corruption and external opportunities. But more on that in another article on another day.
The lack of faith in the parties and the legal protection available is demonstrated with 45% of the youth stating that they could only trust themselves, and 58% stating that the strength of the economic blow brought on by the world-wide crisis would have been softened had the government positions not been so corrupted.
The job market, as a whole, was also brought into question, with 33% of unemployed youth stating that they would do any work should it be well paid, steady and related to their field of study. However, according to the study 67.8% would like to see the “closed professions” being opened up more. (What this means is that they want to eradicate the need to write local examinations to become qualified to practice/work in Cyprus even after graduating from a specialized college or university, a good call I say! Bring in more trained professionals!)
40.5% say that the main problem with the job market is that it is too closed and inelastic whilst the survey in Greece found 43% of their youth saying that their main cause for the brutal job market was the fact that there was a very feeble link between it and the educational systems. I think that there is actually evidence of both being a problem in our local job market. What do you think? Would you leave to better your career and living conditions? Leave a comment!
Source : Philenews.com
