Young, jobless, broke: today's lost generation

Lesishu — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:22:09 +0000

Back in the carefree days of the Noughties boom, Britain's youngsters were swept along by the buy-now-pay-later culture embraced by consumers up and down the country. During a decade of near-full employment, many skipped nimbly from one job - and one credit card - to another, and rainy days were such a distant memory that they hardly seemed worth saving for.

But with the supply of cheap credit drying up and a generation of school and university leavers about to flood the recession-hit job market, thousands of young people with no memory of the early 1990s recession are shocked into the realisation that the world of 2009 is very different.

Katie Orme, 19, who lives in Birmingham, says she has decided never to get a credit card after seeing the problems that her parents and 22-year-old sister have had with debt - just one of the hard lessons that she has had to learn.

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Young, jobless, broke: today's lost generation