It looks like moving home to your parent’s house after college may not be a dead-end. It may even jump-start your career. You just have to put up with your dad… being your boss.
Youth unemployment is dismal around the world (except in Germany) and predicted to flat-line before it goes down. It’s highest for young people in Spain and Greece, where over 50 percent of young people are unemployed.
In America, college grads, frustrated with the labor market, are starting franchises in partnership with their parents. Rick Bisio told the New York Times that 10 to 20 percent of the franchisees he works with as a franchise consultant, are parent-child pairs. And the number is rising.
Whether parents have been laid-off, are looking for a late-career change or want to grow their existing companies, parents are fronting the money to go into business with their kids.
The division of labor usually breaks down like it did for the Leonard family, that started a cell-phone repair franchise:
His wife, Paula, will run the front desk, Mr. Leonard said, while his older son, Russell, 29, will be responsible for marketing; his younger son, Philip, 27, for technology; and his daughter, Carolyn, 24, for social media.
Sure, returning home may not the pinnacle of a 22-year-old’s ambitious future, but it’s one way to get around the youth job market standstill. That is, if your parents are loaded.