Well, over here they would be just grateful to have a job!

It is getting very bad and it is a very gloomy forecast indeed.
Marilyn,
Good point, but these are VERY young people and never lived through some of the things we have, such as the winter of discontent over there and WIN (Whip Inflation Now) over here and the various recessions.
When I graduated university in the latter quarter of the 1970's I could not even get a job as a filing clerk, for the whopping sum of $115 a week.
I think a lot of this generation, are, according to one of my WW members who is a dean at a university, the progeny of what I guess they now call, "helicopter parents," parent who hover over their kids (and yes, I have heard of parents wanting to be at their child's job interview).
I feel bad for an entire generation, that grew up in times of more or less plenty and economic growth, because they aren't really prepared for what's happening.
We at my company are also very fortunate, because the executive management are all, shall we say, "mature." They are very good business people and have high expectations, but they also have a sense of stewardship and obligation to take care of the people that work for them. That has meant not over hiring and making sure we never had too much staff.
But who knows what the future will bring. I work in a commercial insurance company, so our business is tied to the general business state.
Some of our sectors are really suffering because the businesses we insure are disappearing.