“I had this idea that I would study hard, work hard, get the job I studied for, then ask my girlfriend to marry me,” Mr. Mee said.
“I want a career more than anything, but I feel like I’m in a position where a 25-year-old would be,”
said Mr. Mee, who has hired a job coach and set up his own website to improve his prospects.
“It’s hard to manage your finances or even get housing, let alone start a career,” said Mr. Kieloniemi, 23, who added depth to his résumé by accepting unpaid office jobs
and internships in New York and Spain, mostly at his own expense.
If he could find a stable job in his field back in Spain, he said, “I’d be on a plane the next day.”
A sense of relief accompanies a permanent job
Yet in a country where more than 20 percent of job contracts are temporary, he was never able to find permanent work in his area of expertise.
“We were trapped in the strategy of this multinational, which was just waiting to discard us after two years of hard work,” Mr. Minnaar said.
Joost Minnaar, Scientist
‘In one fell swoop, all our excitement and engagement vanished.’
Joost Minnaar, an industrious Dutchman, had a dream job in Barcelona, Spain, as a nanotechnologist at a German
company with 30 other scientists, working on new developments for television, tablet and computer displays.
Even mobile-phone companies would not give him a contract; he had to get one through his girlfriend, who has a full-time job as a midwife.
