1. The Illusion of “Too Many Workers”

When we see long lines for a single job opening, we usually assume the problem is overpopulation—too many young people fighting for too few jobs. But data from the wealthy Global North proves this is a myth.

• The Missing Jobs: In wealthy G7 countries, populations are actually aging and shrinking. Fewer young people are entering the workforce every year. Yet, youth unemployment in these nations is still double the national average.
• A Demand Problem: This tells us the crisis isn’t about a surplus of youth. It’s a structural failure where the economy is simply refusing to create demand for new human labor.

2. How the Rules Were Changed

To understand why the job market feels broken today, economists look back at a massive shift in how governments ran the world starting in the 1980s.

• The Golden Era of the Worker (1945-1973): After the Great Depression, governments actively intervened in the economy. They spent heavily on public welfare to guarantee full employment. Because jobs were plentiful, workers had massive bargaining power, leading to the highest, most equal economic growth in modern history.
• The Neoliberal Shift (The 1980s): Leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher changed the game. Arguing that big government was hurting businesses, they rolled back welfare, weakened labor unions, and created “flexible” labor markets (making it easier to fire people). This successfully boosted corporate profits, but the working class saw its share of the wealth take a nosedive.

3. The Trap: Why Low Wages Hurt Everyone

By crushing the bargaining power of workers to save money, this economic model created a trap for itself—a scenario economists call the “crisis of underconsumption.”

• The Spending Freeze: If a company pays its workers poorly, it makes a larger profit today. But if every company underpays its workers, the general public eventually runs out of money to buy anything.
• Why Hiring Stops: Because nobody is buying goods, businesses stop investing in new factories and stop hiring new workers. Instead of expanding, they try to maintain profits by replacing existing human workers with automation and AI.
• The Education Debt Trap: When the youth inevitably cannot find jobs in this frozen market, society often blames them, telling them they simply aren’t “skilled enough.” This turns education into a highly lucrative, money-making industry, where young people take on massive debt for expensive degrees that no longer guarantee a stable paycheck.

The global youth protests are not just a reaction to a temporary economic dip. They are a profound rejection of an economic system that structurally prioritizes corporate profit margins over creating stable, dignified livelihoods for the next generation.