Meh... I think it's the same old story. Young people have always been flaky buggers when they first leave the nest. Heck knows most of us were (especially being the musical types). It takes some time in the real world to really "get it".
 
Of course there are certain generations in western society that got carted off to war quite young and then there are those from rural areas who had to get up a tend to the farm or starve. General crap like that that instilled work ethics and discipline younger than others.
 
For those coming from certain areas of the globe... well there's that real do or die (or at least go hungry) action instilled, again, at a young age.
 
I have a certain amount of faith in the current crop of sproutlings despite their faults (mostly bred and taught into them by us older farts). They seem like they're generally bright enough but just need a dose of reality like all of us did at some point to get their heads in the game. A good employer can do that (but of course you aren't a guidance counsellor... you're a businessman).
 
As I said upthread. I have to have faith in them otherwise we're all boned.
 
And again... let's think back to the young people of the 60's, 70's, 80's and (in my case) 90's. The young people were generally just as flighty, vapid and self absorbed.
 
That of course doesn't mean you need to hire them. Just saying they're still confused, goofy little pups figuring the world out. They may turn out alright. They could of course also turn out to be a total nightmare.
 
Only time will tell.
 
Cheers.

@Beepster...not to rain on your parade but sociologists have a very different take. They see very different patterns in generational behavior due to many factors, not the least of which is the environment that said generation grows up in... i.e. Technological advances, current cultural norms, etc...or the parenting they receive from their previous generation...generally rebelling against or at the very least modifying the methods of their own parents. While "kids will be kids" may be a generic truism...every succeeding generation shows definite strains of "uniqueness" that makes them particularly identifiable.

Keep in mind, sharke, that you are hiring dog walkers. While you and your clients may believe that it is a demanding and responsible job, many people who are looking for work in your field probably are not so impressed. If you were hiring investment bankers or corporate lawyers, you would probably find a much more nuanced understanding of the need to spell check applications and take care to come across as an adult in an interview, even among young people. I was a pretty feckless young man, in and out of menial jobs at a whim, working just enough to manage a hippy lifestyle. 
 
Maybe we are expecting too much of young people seeking marginal jobs. I was frankly flabbergasted when I saw a sign outside a JiffyLube saying that they were hiring and inviting prospective employees to submit a curriculum vitae. A CV from a guy who is going to change oil all day? No one ever asked me for a CV, or even a high school diploma for my first dozen jobs. And the people I worked with in those days (mostly older than I) had a really lousy work ethic. Essentially the old "we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us," menatlity. These were ofen the guys in my father's (the greatest) generation. You are probably too young to become a really successful curmudgeon, but you are on the right track. In my day, it required at least a few years of social security before we could confidently put down a whole generation. That and the years of walking ten miles each way to school uphill in both directions in a blinding snowstorm every day.

I used to say *when burger flippers want $14 per hour to flip burgers, then you know inflation is about to take off.*  Wage inflation is around the corner I'm afraid.  And that will start the process, onwards and upwards.  I imagine we'll be getting 16% for Tbills before long! :D  But the reason I mention this is that, perhaps the reason it's getting harder to find decent workers is symptom of full employment (5% unemployment and lower).  Maybe not.

$15 per hour right now in Seattle for flipping burgers.  Portland's catching up.  I work in the real estate industry and it's insane.  Only difference between now and 2008 is that the fed just spent the last  5 years printing and disseminating trillions of dollars.  Wages will catch up eventually, I hope.  People are actually going homeless because they simply can't afford the rent increases.  Sound familiar?

Consumers pay every cent of the employees wages. They're paid for with revenue, not profit. So however much wages increase, we'll all pay for those increases in the form of higher prices. When everything expands, nothing does. 

All minimum wage levels do is either price out of the job market everyone whose skills are worth less than the minimum rate, or lead to price increases to pay for it all. If wage increases were funded by profits then I'm sure we could all feel smug in the knowledge that the greedy business owners were getting their just desserts, but that's not where wages come from. Anyway, Seattle lost a ton of jobs in the restaurant industry when they hiked up the minimum wage. 
 

So you, like, don't want to, like, hire millennials?  Like, why is that?  Can they, like, be, like, that bad?

dmbaer
So you, like, don't want to, like, hire millennials?  Like, why is that?  Can they, like, be, like, that bad?

Like OMG!

I'm a quasi-libertarian pseudo intellectual and a false prophet. At least I can teach music.

Again, I would heartily encourage anyone who thinks that raising the minimum wage is (or has ever been) overtly inflationary to simply do the due diligence to actually look for and provide the evidence. It simply is not there. While it may cause some temporary upward price pressure on certain businesses in the short term (again...the operative word here is "may") in the long term its effects are almost always minor and not inflationary.

I honestly couldn't care less from an argumentative standpoint whether it does or doesn't. I'm just relating what I found without much trouble from multiple unbiased sources. Sorry.

Actually, there's far more negative impacts if the minimum wage is increased to $15/hour.  Although what Sharke has pointed out above is the initial issue, many small business owners currently are not making 10% profit and this move will undoubtedly sink their businesses.  Others will have to let people go and/or dramatically raise the prices on their products to cover the increase.  $8 Big Macs anyone?
 
But, here's the bigger ripple effect that is not being seen yet:  Joe currently makes 20% more than the minimum wage because [insert any reason here, seniority, tougher job, supervisory position, etc.] when, suddenly, John, a new-hire with no experience, is now making a lot more (Oregon and Washington already have some of the highest minimum wages at $9.75 and $9.47 - the highest is in D.C. at $11.50/hour while most are at $7.25).  For the Pacific Northwest, current minimum wage earners would immediately get more than a 50% raise (without doing anything more or better).  Obviously, at the very least, everyone who used to be making more than the minimum, but less than $15/hour will also have to be bumped up to the new minimum, however every one those people will now be screaming for an increase from there relative to where they were before (and why shouldn't they?).  Needless to say, now some of those employees will now be making more than those in tougher positions or even their own managers so now THAT class of employee will demand a raise as well. And up the chain it goes.
 
It's only a very naive socialist view that the "extra" profits from so-called greedy business owners will now be spread out all the way to the lowest paid employee.  The reality is that the truly greedy ones will never distribute what they consider to be "their" profits and will simply raise their prices to cover the new expenses (maybe my guess was low, $11 Big Macs anyone?).  More and more businesses are already cutting employee hours so they don't need to provide benefits and this will only get worse.  Ok, so the minimum wagers now make a LOT more (which, frankly, they don't deserve - read Sharke's other topic to see what the typical low-level employee will provide for that money), but they will now have to cover things they might not have had to before like medical, dental, any days off (which are now without pay), etc.
 
Anyone who thinks now that these lowest wage earners will now have more money to spend to make their lives better will find that they really don't after everything that they have to buy now costs more.
 
What about retirees?  They've already made whatever they could in hopes it would last for the rest of their lives.  Huge increases in the cost of living may mean they run out of money long before it's their time to pass.
 
There's (at least) one more impact as well.  Anyone NOT working who's been barely scraping by will now be truly screwed since anything they've been making is not affected by the minimum wage increase so they now have far less money relative to what they need to get.  Even those getting some form of government assistance will feel this since you can bet that all of them won't be getting a 50% increase in their benefits!

eph221
But the reason I mention this is that, perhaps the reason it's getting harder to find decent workers is symptom of full employment (5% unemployment and lower).  

Full employment??!?  I don't know (haven't looked yet) where these ridiculous unemployment numbers come from, but I can only guess it's based on the number of people getting unemployment benefits.  The actual unemployment percentage (those that could be working but are not) is MUCH higher (over 40% is my guess).  The 5% joke of a number doesn't include ANY of the people (like myself) who didn't qualify for unemployment, anyone who has given up on finding work, or all of those whose unemployment benefits have already run out.  Heck, I just read that if you mow someones lawn and made $20 during a week that you're also not considered unemployed!  So exclude anyone working part time too.  Check this out:
 

Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older.

 
That 5% number seems to indicate only one person out of 20 is unemployed.  So how many people do YOU know of?  Personally, I know of a lot and many of us used to have really decent jobs.  Several of my friends (an IT Director, a partner at Accenture, a programming manager, some programmers, etc.) were wiped out financially during the same time I was (2008-9).  I know because we all contacted each other trying to find work.  Of my immediate friends (including my roommate), it's about one in three.  The fact that about half of the population (It was at 49.2% in 2011 and rising) gets some form of government benefits should be a big clue that something is seriously messed up!  

Pedro's the poet.  I'm a lyricist, there's a difference!  
 
(And, yes, I AM bitter!  I've been trying to get work just to pay basic bills since June.  I'm considered too old at 52 or over-qualified for any low-level position and, apparently, I don't have enough "current experience" to get back into the IT world - even though I managed to run my own IT Consulting business for several years.  That's stopping due to a lack of new clients and a few mainstays that can't afford things right now.)

It reminds me of that video someone posted that demonstrates "truth" as a very individual point of view.