TV Review : MTV’s ‘Help’ Paints Bleak Picture of Job Market

Twentysomething and can’t get a job? Your mistake was spending those four or more years in college. Instead of getting that degree in accounting, you should have been in fast food, the military or behind the counter at your local mall.

That seems to be the message in tonight’s half-hour MTV report “Help Not Wanted,” a bleak overview of job prospects for young people, hosted by Tabitha Soren.

The happy people here are a McDonald’s manager (with a degree in engineering), a female Navy recruit and an air-conditioning installer. The college grads are singing the I-can’t-find-a-job-and-I-have-student-loans-to-pay-off blues. The much touted economic recovery finds that corporations are less inclined to invest in full-time employees and that many recent college graduates are unemployed or working at lower-skill jobs.

In fact, we’re told that, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, “by the year 2000, half of all Americans will be employed on a temporary basis.” In addition to that dismaying news, desperate young job seekers are being scammed by unscrupulous, multilevel sales companies--as a “hidden camera” expose shows.

You can say that these young adults should be glad to have any job today. But the sense of betrayal that colors this gloomy report is understandable: We’re still telling them that a college education is the key to success. It can be, but the message needs a qualifier. Reality can be a real jolt.

* “Help Not Wanted” airs at 10 tonight on MTV.