Retail Giant Searches for ‘Un-Employee’ of the Year – EU Business News – CNBC

Alessandro Benetton is on a mission to find a cure for the ailing global economy and he’s asking 100 million or so jobless young people to chip in with ideas.

The 48-year-old chairman of Benetton launched the family business’s latest “UNHATE” advertising campaign on Tuesday, highlighting the plight of unemployed people under 30 who are striving to find meaningful work every day.

Benetton believes the generation appearing in a market-place where the old economic models are not providing them with the kinds of opportunities that kept their fathers in work for decades need to be tapped for ideas.

“In the history of the world … the great inventions, great leadership, the great differences were always made by people under 30 years old,” the slender scion of one of Italy’s best known family retail brands told Reuters. “Now I don’t think we can look into this unknown future unless we talk to these people.”

The ads and video which show determined young people at protests, in work attire waiting for interviews or at the unemployment office are bound to be less controversial than Benetton’s last campaign.

That resulted in the company agreeing in May to make a donation to a Catholic charity to end a legal dispute with the Vatican over an advertisement that showed Pope Benedict kissing an imam on the lips.

The latest global campaign will consist of posters, t-shirts, a film and a contest to choose 100 “unemployees of the year” who will each receive 5,000 euros ($6,600) for their pet projects.

Contestants must be between 18 and 30 years old, and unemployed. They must submit their story and project idea to http://www.unhatefoundation.org and will be chosen by an online poll of their peers on the same site. The contest lasts until Oct. 14.

via Retail Giant Searches for ‘Un-Employee’ of the Year – EU Business News – CNBC.

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Why Are Harvard Graduates in the Mailroom? – NYTimes.com

In their book “Freakonomics,” Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt explain, among other things, the odd economic behavior that guides many drug dealers. In one gang they described, the typical street-corner guy made less than minimum wage but still worked extremely hard in hopes of some day becoming one of the few wildly rich kingpins. This behavior isn’t isolated to illegal activity. There are a number of professions in which workers are paid, in part, with a figurative lottery ticket. The worker accepts a lower-paying job in exchange for a slim but real chance of a large, future payday.

This more or less explains Hollywood. Yes, the Oscars may be an absurd spectacle of remarkably successful people congratulating themselves for work that barely nudges at the borders of meaningful human achievement. But it’s also a celebration of a form of meritocratic capitalism. I’m not talking about the fortunes lavished on extremely good looking people; no, I mean the economic system that compels lots of young people to work extremely hard for little pay so that it’s possible to lavish fortune on the good-looking people. That’s the spirit of meritocratic capitalism!

Hollywood is, in some ways, the model lottery industry. For most companies in the business, it doesn’t make economic sense to, as Google does, put promising young applicants through a series of tests and then hire only the small number who pass. Instead, it’s cheaper for talent agencies and studios to hire a lot of young workers and run them through a few years of low-paying drudgery. Actors are another story altogether. Many never get steady jobs in the first place. This occupational centrifuge allows workers to effectively sort themselves out based on skill and drive. Over time, some will lose their commitment; others will realize that they don’t have the right talent set; others will find that they’re better at something else.

via Why Are Harvard Graduates in the Mailroom? – NYTimes.com.

Strange Random Employment Quote:

“Time, with all its celerity, moves slowly to him whose whole employment is to watch its flight” – Samuel Johnson (English Poet, Critic and Writer. 1709-1784)

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