300,000 young people are unemployed and receive a living wage: voluntary military service should help them find a job

25 comments

  1. Is this basically the idea of France?
    Well show those kids some backbreaking work and they’ll become a proper part of society?

  2. Ask any high ranking military officer about how shit forced conscription was during the Vietnam era. Nothing worse for an army than unmotivated soldiers, just look at Russia for the latest examples.

    And that counts for every job in the military and beyond, including “groendienst” for municipalities. The money spent would probably yield better results when used for personal job “begeleiding”

  3. >In very concrete terms, the minister wants defense to employ 200 young people next year.

    So, 300K young unemployed and the measure would be for only 200. GVA redactors showing how to produce a clickbait…

    ​

    >Minister of Defense Ludivine Dedonder (PS) wants to activate unemployed young people with the establishment of the ‘voluntary Service of Collective Utility’ (DCN).
    >
    >“We have to integrate them and at the same time make them feel useful within the community. We want to offer them a clear framework and structure that they would not otherwise receive. We are also convinced that after such a process, the young people will 99 percent certainly find a job.” In other words, the army must train young people to fully enter the field of work.

    According to our PS Minister of Defense, there is no other way to find any “clear framework” or “structure” for young people but in the army. Professional trainings, university studies or any other type of education are nothing compared to wearing green uniforms and learning how to use guns…

  4. Yeah but the restrictions are hard af, when I went for my medical, I went in with a group of 20 guys, some really fit and healthy, some less. All going for pretty basic functions, 1 of the 20 passed the tests. So idk how a mandatory/volountaty service would help becouse 99% of the kids wouldn’t pass the tests

  6. How about we invest in education and support for parents/mental health to avoid having a bunch of 18 year old with no qualifications, life skills or a sense of decency in the first place.

    But I’m kind of being harsh, I hear a lot of young people who just seem to have giving up? Social media is a curse in this regard, no attention spans, no critical thinking. Last month I heard a 18 year old talking about the free car he was getting from his grandfather wasn’t good enough. (was some kind of 12 year old Peugeot, perfect first car), it had to be an Audi, nothing else. He then proceeded to ponder how he was going to take out a loan and couldn’t figure out how banks made money.

    My man, they make money because of irresponsible suckers like you. The irony.

    Ge kunt een ezel op een lange reis sturen, maar hij komt nooit terug als paard.

  7. I work at an organization that guides people with a distance to the job market to work. This ‘one fits all’ solution is something that I hear so often from people that don’t know much about the matter. Not only would it cost a lot of money to a country with a tight budgetary situation, it also ignores some of the real issues. I’ll give some examples:

    – many of these young people have kids. We have a huge shortage of daycare in Belgium.
    – many people that are on a living wage have other problems on the side that prevent or limit them in their ability to get a job (f.e. problems at home such as domestic violence, not having a place to sleep, mental problems, etc.).
    – High expectations of many employers drive many of them to a state of depression or fear of making mistakes in their first steps on the job market.
    – many people don’t have the right education. You could go to school, but often their budgetary situation or the daycare problem limits their possibilities.
    – we already have a shortage of teachers. People that want an education often have to wait for a very long time before they can take a course.
    – many people that don’t speak our language want to learn it, they encounter the same shortage of teachers. Often they have to study for 5 years before their language is good enough for employers to even consider hiring them. (And still VOKA wants to bring in more people to our country, maybe we could invest in the people we have here already?)
    – in some cultures it is still considered normal that the woman takes care of the children and the household and that the man is the provider. It used to be normal in our country several decades ago. Why isn’t it anymore? Nowadays you have to work full-time with 2 people to get around financially.
    – When these women divorce they often have to suddenly provide for their families, having no experience at all, which makes them very unattractive for most employers.
    – many people with disabilities are also unattractive for enployers. Even people with slight disabilities get rejected.

    I’m not saying that the army couldn’t be a solution for some of them, but it would only be a tiny part of a more complicated puzzle. And then I’m not even talking about the many people being laid off because of restructuring within companies to up their profits so they can pay more to their shareholders…

    #sorryfortherant

    I’m just so sick and tired of hearing these simple solutions. Even though the start of the solution isn’t too complicated either: let’s start by investing waaay more in daycare and education…

    #endofrant

  8. Completely false and misleading article. Even the most basic fact checking proves this to be wrong on every possible level. There should be fines for “news” articles like this.

  9. > We zijn er ook van overtuigd dat na zo’n traject de jongeren 99 procent zeker een job zullen vinden.

    Iets zegt me dat 99% een verzonnen getal is hier. Ga benieuwd zijn welke jobs hier uit gaan komen en wat de impact hiervan gaat zijn.

    Het is ook voor 200 mensen volgend jaar op een 300.000 jonge werklozen wat de titel een klein beetje misleidend maakt.

  11. This is a myth (a great sounding one of course, given the political climatem which has been debunked by numerous researchers already. These “social security for work/service” proposals are not new and have been deployed in other European countries, with none or only marginal effects on unemployment. One of the reasons is that these workers (or soldiers in this case) will not be put in a position that effectively strengthens their position on the labor markets. On the contrary in fact.

  13. Again the military service wet dream….

    Learning discipline , integration, mixing culture, etc. have NEVER been targets of any military service but a side effect. If you want troops to behave and follow operational orders they must understand each other. If a recruit cannot be disciplined they are discharged.

    Instructors are not youth counselors or HR orientation employees. Again it’s a side effect because of operational reasons.

    Learning a job has NEVER been a target of military service. The armed forces just needed low cost with low qualification workforce to operate. (or cannon fodder in wartime). A driver is needed? Have a milician pass his driving licence at the base. We need a caterer and waiters for the Colonel cocktail? Find milicians who learned hospitality in secondary school, etc… We have computers and email now, there is no need to maintain hundreds of filing, encoding, mailing cheap desk clerks in green fatigues. Industrial catering machines can be transported to the field, no need anymore for potato peelers.

    An instructor is not a nanny for young adult or an orientation coach.

  14. Heck ive been a young unemployed person for nearly 2 years and dont get a dime lol

    (Health issues arose during final semester of school, so i did graduate but havent been able to get a job since and hadnt worked before thus im not able to receive unemployment benefits)

  15. So, let’s ignore the totally unrealistic numbers,

    Most of those who would volunteer will be the motivated ones, and those probably can probably find a job any way.

    That said, I don’t disagree that a **voluntary** military service could be a valuable experience as a kind of good starting point for some people who got lost and don’t know what to do.

    I know a kid that wasn’t happy with the career path he had chosen and joined the “marine” . It seems to be working out for him. (On the other hand, he’s a hard worker and was already working in highschool. )

    So, I think there will definitely be some interest in something less definite than joining the marine (or defense in general) like a military service. But it probably won’t be the “troubled” people they’re talking about.

    It definitely won’t change anything on a society level ;they’re talking about 200 positions anyway.

  17. The US armed forces do this better. There is no conscription but they do actively recruit in the poorest and uneducuated sectors of the country. Sounds bad? Well think of it this way.

    They sign a 4 year contract for active duty and 4 year reserve. Meanwhile in the army, they can get not just a good wage and housing= they can get education. And its heavily encouraged. This is my old gaming buddy from Ohio learned his trade of welding and car body worker.

    He went in uneducuated and came out as educuated. From a poor nobody to a family man with a house, wife and 2 kids. And he has been doing great ever since.

    The swiss do conscription but once there you can get so many educuations. The swiss guy i met in finland got his IT knownledge all in the army for free.

    Not sure if conscription is a good idea…but you have to make it work in those people there favour. Give them the oppertunity to go back to civilian life with an usefull skill and degree.

  18. Here we go again

    When capitalism can’t provide the jobs and the economical growth it supposed to, it militarises the population to prevent social unrest, instead of redistribution of wealth and political power. Smells of a déjà vu.

  19. i don’t know if werkloosheiduitkering is the same as leefloon but having received the first one for 13 months during 2020-2021 I can on first hand say that pushing people into jobs that they don’t like just so they can receive ~1000-1300€ would just make it worse.

    Even though I suffer from mental health problems, I pushed my way through unemployment because the VDAB assigned me a coach who helped me get into a school for a trade I had interest in (Lassen) It was never een verplicht and i could’ve withdrawn anytime.

    this is anecdotal but i believe you need to give people the tools and coach them to find things they -might- like, personally that’s the permanent solution, anything else is just reducing people as working hands.

  20. People who aren’t motivated won’t even get through the tests. No officer and I mean NO officer wants a bunch of unmotivated fuckups for soldiers. It’s not like they have the resources for it anyway.

  21. Between april of 2022 and march of 2023 we had 361 493 jobopenings, according to http://www.vlaanderen.be.

    The problem here isn’t a lack of potential employment so enforcing some sort of military stint is absurd, as it would do *nothing* towards solving the issues we’re experiencing on our jobmarket.

    There are a load of problems that need adressing;

    – “leeflonen” provided are too close in monetary payout to our minimumwage jobs so a somewhat general mentality seems to be “why work if I can sit at home for (almost) the same paycheck.”
    – People who just graduated struggle with being hired due to the absurd experience-demands.
    – People between the ages of roughly 48 and retirementage are also struggling with being hired due to age.
    – Despite every employer struggling to find employees discrimination due to age, heritage, gender, sexuality,.. is still running rampant.
    – The goverment, granted in an attempt to help, rewards employers who hire people who have been unemployed for a longer time, thus rendering the freshly unemployed less attractive from a monetary point of view ans only creating more long term unemployed.

    The RVA is also creating more issues than it solves with a flawed system. As an employer myself I cannot tell you how many “applicants” I get who walk in, wave a sheet of paper around for me to sign to confirm that they’ve applied for the job so they can continue recieving unemployment, without any intention of actually applying for jobs.

    Also, “interimbureaus” simply ruin whatever will to work people have left, and rightfully so. Week and dagcontracten are a horrible system for the employee and only serve to create an enviroment where employers can hire cheap labor without having to dish out for any of the extralegal benefits that are decently standard here in Belgium.

  25. Really? This again? It’s an absolute waste of money. They will do their term and leave. Only a very small minority would stay in the military long-term.

    This is nothing but a waste of taxpayer money in order to babysit a bunch of adults in order to pretend that these people aren’t working.

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