So many dreams for our youngsters dashed.

The worst of it is that we haven't seen all the effects of choosing to fight with our largest customer yet. Imagine you were running a business and had a major customer who was close at hand. You constantly insult and belittle them; you expect to get out of previously agreed contracts; you expect the customer to make changes in your contract reversing the previous agreement with them once the contract is in process. And this is a customer who doesn't need you as much as you need them. How would you expect them to behave towards you?

Ellianne [Thu 05-Aug-21 09:21:38] you came onto a thread and made a political remark and then backed down from the politics and wanted special treatment. It won't happen in Europe and you can't expect it on these threads either.

Maybe, just maybe, some of our young people recognise that a whole world exists outside the UK and they would like to be part of it

Maybe if so many inward looking, prejudiced people hadn't fallen for the 'let's get rid of the foreigners' claptrap that characterized Brexit, we wouldn't be in this mess and young people wouldn't be feeling the effects of it.
Leavers have a lot to answer for.
Before anyone jumps in to say that their reasons for voting Leave were considered in depth, for each person who says that, there were far many more whose reasons were totally flimsy. I read of one person who had voted to leave because she said we might as well be out because our songs were always rubbish and we hadn't won it for years.

It’s still very early days really, in particular because of the disruption of Covid, and that happening just as we left the EU. There is indeed a whole world out there, and that of course, includes EU countries. In the immediate future I think job opportunities will be somewhat limited anywhere else in the world due to Covid. I think we’ll have to wait and see how it all settles down when we are living with Covid (a bit like we live with flu) and only then will we be able to see the Brexit effect with regard to jobs.

In the 60s a friend and I planned to spend a few months travelling through Europe getting jobs as we went but in those days you needed a work permit before you could do any work, but no one got a work permit without already having a job. Stalemate. Hence dream dashed.
I was, and still am, disappointed with the ( so slim) vote to leave Europe, effectively closing down so many opportunities.

My son did his year abroad at Venice University under the Erasmus programme eight years ago when studying Italian and Spanish at university. A fantastic opportunity for him living in a city that he would never be able to afford to do again. We certainly could not have afforded to send him there if it wasn’t for the Erasmus programme, it’s now only something the rich can do, certainly a narrowing of opportunities for the ordinary person.

Clearly someone with a degree in Russian from Durham is quite likely to get job offers BUT what was great about the ease of travel/work permits around europe was that many young people with lesser qualifications expanded their horizons and learnt a different language.

I do get fed up with the insularity on here . If someone says they’d love to go abroad on holiday again we get “what’s wrong with a holiday in Uk?”

Now we get “oh they can get jobs in UK….

One of my favourites Lucca was someone on here describing how difficult is was to order jewellery from an online site they'd used before, to be told there are plenty of jewellers in the UK!

I would say the majority of GNs didn't have the opportunity to work abroad - were their "hopes dashed"? We somehow managed to fulfill our dreams and make good lives for ourselves.

It became the norm for young people to have a "gap year" to go "find themselves" now they can still work abroad they just have to show they have the skills required by that country - it may lead to less young people believing they are entitled to have and do whatever they want.

Exactly, thanks.

I'd be very concerned if any of my GC wanted to go and work in Russia, or in China- and the HK option is not really there anymore.

Some youngsters I know used to work the winter in the Alps, and then the Summer in Spain or Greece, etc. Unless they can get some EU nationality, it will be VERY difficult to continue to do so. It is also putting so many travel companies, both winter, ski, and summer, sport, oriented- as they can't recruit staff- from cleaners, to reps, instructors, etc.

I would say the majority of GNs didn't have the opportunity to work abroad - were their "hopes dashed"?

I'm not sure that will actually be true, lots of GNers have spent or are still spending significant times "abroad".

I went to work at a French University for two years, there were no work permits needed and my qualifications were accepted there with no queries whatsoever. I was in my 30s, so hardly a "gap year" and hardly "young".

A few years later (in my forties ) I went to live in a non-EU country and had to pass medicals, send in my qualifications for "approval" and had to apply for a visa. Having been through both systems, the first was definitely more conducive to me fulfilling my opportunities.

“ it may lead to less young people believing they are entitled to have and do whatever they want”
Oh dear. Not all young people behind go and work/travel abroad are on a gap year or are “entitled”. Don’t GN posters want people to see the world ???travel broadens the mind… so true

I have to say I find the Winter chalet girl/boy jobs or summer Eurocamp reps a bit “Gap Yah”. (Probably jealous as I had to earn my keep as an au pair in my summer vacs.)
D1 did Camp Counselor in N Carolina for two summers and an exchange to Norway for the third - there are all sorts of things available for the enterprising.

My kids don't think they are entitled what a really nasty thing to post.

One of my sons took two languages at school and did exchange trips, I don't think it would be as useful as a year abroad with Erasmus , though obviously not all youngsters go to university anyway.

My predictive text thing has gone beserk today.
In my post..”behind” was meant to be “who”

MawBe

I have to say I find the Winter chalet girl/boy jobs or summer Eurocamp reps a bit “Gap Yah”. (Probably jealous as I had to earn my keep as an au pair in my summer vacs.)
D1 did Camp Counselor in N Carolina for two summers and an exchange to Norway for the third - there are all sorts of things available for the enterprising.

Quite judgemental for sure. I know many who have made it a total life-style, and this for many many years. Several have settled there, marrying locals, and becoming Managers, ski instructors (having started as kitchen washer-uppers, etc), and others have their own company building, carpentry, plumbing, etc.

You shouldn't watch too many British films which give a totally distorted idea of what the job means. Most of them don't work for posh chalets or posh people, but ski companies or language schools, etc, that cater for school trips, etc. Some I know used to be students of mine- some I took abroad on cheap ski trips and totally fell in love with the sport and the mountains. We used to go by coach all the way, used to organise 2nd clothes sales and rent some in the UK- to cut cost down to the absolute minimum.

But the subject is about taking the choice away.

Do you think 'chalet' staff do not have to earn their keep. What do you think they do?

They clean, the toilets too, work in the kitchen, make the beds, organise ski hire and lessons, deal with drunken customers and clean up after them, and so much more. They work, hard.

Isn't this evidence of the divide though?

There are a group of people who have taken the best advantage of all the opportunities available to them, to travel in Europe and see a bit of the world, and who have a changed world view because of that.

Then there are a group of people who think that anybody who wants to do that is just an overprivileged layabout and they should just stay here and work in a hotel.

Actually I know very well what they do -as nieces, a nephew , daughters and sons of various friends and back in the day two of my cousins did it.
They also managed to fit in a fair bit of skiing and social life, so please don’t preach.

You shouldn't watch too many British films which give a totally distorted idea of what the job means. Most of them don't work for posh chalets or posh people, but ski companies or language schools, etc, that cater for school trips, etc. Some I know used to be students of mine- some I took abroad on cheap ski trips and totally fell in love with the sport and the mountains. We used to go by coach all the way, used to organise 2nd clothes sales and rent some in the UK- to cut cost down to the absolute minimum

I have never watched a British or indeed any other nationality film on this topic.
Now who is being judgemental? .

'Entitled' honestly?

Yes, let's go back to ma father's days- aged 14 he was told 'you are starting an apprenticeship as a tailor on Monday'. He begged to stay on at school, and wanted to go on to further Ed. and said he didn't want to become a tailor. The reply was simple 'no-one is asking you'.

Working abroad is no easy option, and has very little security, and even less now. It often led to better things long-term, but easy and 'entitled' it was and isn't. But it is great to have the choice.

Thank goodness my GCs can apply for Irish passports, but so unfair for those whose choice is just being removed.

I have plenty regrets in my life, but spending time living and working abroad (in Europe as it happens) is NOT one of them. It is something which I still think about often and of which I quite proud.
I feel sad that people today will need to jump through far more hoops to get the experience I had for, frankly, no good reason.

I totally agree that leaving the EU has closed down opportunities but it is what it is. I'm not sure we help our young people by being too sympathetic though, there are other countries. My daughter took a gap year, worked 3 different minimum wage PT jobs and saved enough to spend 2 months in Tanzania and 1 month in China working as a volunteer. She taught English in schools, worked on an HIV awareness project, started a netball group and coached etc. She lived in very basic conditions and was physically and emotionally challenged but my goodness she grew several years in maturity! The world hasn't shut down because we've left the EU but it has closed up because of the pandemic, let's encourage our grandchildren to become resilient and ambitious rather than "hard done by". fwiw in the 60's I also worked in the UK to earn enough money to travel in Europe for 4 weeks and I had a great time, just needed a passport.

Times change, laws change and young people adapt, its not the end of the world not to work in EU.

Oh dear - some people act as if they are the only ones to have any knowledge or experience of people of whatever age studying or working outside the UK.
I would be in sympathy with much of the argument re choice - on principle- but also personally as D2 who studied at the Maastricht Kunstakademie has worked in theatres in Germany, Sweden, the US as well as the U.K., but what makes it hard to agree is the accusatory tone, the intransigence and the implication that anybody who is not 101% in agreement is somehow small -minded, Little British and pig ignorant

Isn't this evidence of the divide though?

I think it's evidence of a lack of understanding of how very closely integrated with the other EU member states we had become at a personal level. It's not just about gap year or holiday jobs; to assume that it is reveals a certain narrowness of thought, but about opportunities for life.

Opportunities to work seamlessly between two or more EU states, either travelling between them or settling in one, for a whole career. Opportunities to start small businesses to trade seamlessly with 27 other nations, opportunities to develop relationships with other EU nationals and be confident of their right to live in each other's country.

What was so wrong with all that that it had to be taken away?

What have we gained from it?