Qualified candidates tough to come by, say small business owners

Bringing your mommy and daddy to a job interview......wearing pajamas?? As the article said, poorly groomed, uninformed and with high wage expectations. Add to that multiple piercings and other body alterations.

How did the Gen X parents get so stupid so fast ?

I remember one welding shop I worked at back in 1999. I was talking to the chief foreman when he was reviewing an application that someone had sent in to see if they could be hired as a labourer. Whoever sent it in was just out of high school, allegedly, and the writing looked like it had been sent in by a dyslexic ten-year-old. The foreman was a fairly tough and miserable old-school guy who didn't have much sympathy at all for anyone's issues but that application almost brought him to tears. He said what in the hell kind of life in the modern world would the applicant end up having with a lack of even the basics of writing and an education that had obviously completely failed him. The poor bastard would probably be a floor-sweeper forever because even if he wanted to become a welder or fitter there was no way he'd ever pass the apprenticeship classes with writing that bad. It was a pretty sad moment that day because of that application.

It scares me that this generation will be running the country when I'm older and fully retired.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to retire. I look around at all my colleagues, and all are in their 40s and 50s, all have grey beards and hair (if there's any left ).

There is no one in their 20s and 30s to learn what we do around here. No one to take over when we retire.

Nonsense. Take my son for instance. According to him, he's going to be a Ph.D. electrical enigneer, an M.D., and play for the Whitecaps and the Canucks. We're in good hands.

Preface:I did go to University, ( one year). My wife's grandson brought home his homework and I took a look at it. I could not even understand the question, much less come up with a plausible answer.What the hell are our schools teaching? Gay Sex Ed???? I have had to deal with the younger generation on the job, the under 40 crowd. I find that the level of technical expertise and talent is deplorable. More worrying is a grand sense of entitlement, and a REFUSAL to learn. But then what do you expect from little Johnny when all his life he has been told how good he is and promoted through school with no learning.