You Can’t Fool Generation Y

Regarding “Bringing Gen Y Aboard for the Long Haul,” July 10:

Managers who believe that mentors are going to increase Generation Y’s corporate loyalty are willfully ignoring changes in American corporate culture.

These are children who have watched their parents weather repeated layoffs and are aware of the way downsizing increases stock values.

These students have read articles advising workers to keep up their skills and to be ready for radical changes in labor opportunities.

If they have taken economics classes, they may well have been exposed to professors preaching the advantages of a “flexible” labor market (that is, employees come and go depending on the employers’ needs).

Almost all college-educated Californians have friends who had skilled high-tech jobs and whose work was exported to India.

Unless corporations return to a culture of long-term employment, they can’t expect workers to see them as more than temporary stopping points on a career path.

Carol Dorf

Berkeley