This new generation of workers has been in the workforce for 5-7 years, and American companies have already had a bellyful from the great cultural divide that exists between long established and historically successful business norms and the expectations and needs of a new generation that companies don't understand and don't know how to appease. Just read these boards. Would you hire these people? So how do companies, including EM and the majority of O&G companies survive?
They have 2 current solutions and are rapidly deploying them. First, white collar jobs will be sent overseas. Places like India, South America and the Far East are already top choices, and soon stagnant economies like Japan and Eastern Europe will be begging and bidding to host these jobs. These jobs will be a boon to their economies and their people. American companies will flood these locations with expats for a long learning and transition phase, but overall costs will be much less than supporting this new generation of American workers and their low productivity and never ending complaining.
Second, blue collar jobs will be eliminated through automation. For those that can't be, companies will restructure to be lean and mean, cutting salaries and eliminating benefits to attract just enough people, probably contractors not employees, to do the work with lines of people waiting for jobs if the current workers don't want them. Standard of living will fall dramatically.
Sad but true. There is no longer a viable and trainable workforce of young workers with the skills, work ethic and reliability to sustain what for decades has been the highly valuable American worker. Just look around. It's not a pretty site, and companies aren't waiting any longer to see if this was just a temporary phase. American culture is changing, and many believe not for the better.
So for all of you young folks complaining about everything under the sun, better wake up. Train is rapidly leaving the station with few seats for you. Businesses always find ways to survive, and they are being driven overseas to attract the workers of the future. If you just keep whining and don't adapt, you will be left behind.