Talkative, tidy, intelligent - Hayden MacKenzie does not look or act like a poster boy for the lost generation of today's global youth employment crisis.
But that is the point.
This is an everyman's catastrophe.
Twenty-five years old and looking for his first full-time job, Mr MacKenzie, of Dunedin, can number himself among the 75 million young people worldwide caught up in what is being called one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Unprecedented numbers of unemployed young men and women; an increasing proportion of young people trapped in low-paid, low-quality jobs; and, rising levels of disengagement and discouragement among youth who, from rich and poor backgrounds alike, are not in employment, education or training.
The risk, conference delegates from dozens of countries, including New Zealand's Minister of Labour Kate Wilkinson, were told, was that the trend could become "structural ... resulting in a loss of faith in a better future".
For Mr MacKenzie, the path from school to work became overgrown and seemingly impassable several years ago.
Born in Oamaru, and raised in Dunedin, with a two-year stint in Christchurch as a pre-teen, he decided long before finishing high school without gaining NCEA level 3, that he was going to become a digital graphic artist.
So with Mum letting him decide what was best, while his Auckland-based father pressed him to find work, the young Mr MacKenzie choose to spend the next three years at home on his computer developing his skills as an illustrator.
His passion and persistence revealed a blossoming skill.
But it did not lead to employment.
And the periods of social isolation triggered bouts of depression.
At the start of 2008, Mr MacKenzie took himself off to Otago Polytechnic, where he completed a first-semester certificate in information technology.
He hoped to continue with a two-year diploma in multimedia art and information technology.
But the course was withdrawn, so he switched to a bachelor of information technology degree course.
Within a couple of weeks, struggling with the maths and depression, he quit the course and "got back into my art".
For the next three years that was his world.
He did try to get work, at first.
"There wasn't much I was keen on.
"And even if something appealed, I didn't think I would make the cut, so I didn't apply," he said.
"I think the main reason I didn't get work was because I didn't have previous experience.
"You need a job to get a job - that's the catch-22 a lot of youth are facing these days."
Mr MacKenzie's story is only one of tens of thousands in New Zealand and millions worldwide.
Globally, since 2007, the number of unemployed youth has increased by 4 million to 75 million. Among the 34 developed and emerging nations that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the average unemployment rate of 15- to 24-year-olds has risen from 12% to 16.2% in the past five years.
Topping the list are Greece and Spain, where roughly half of working-age young people are unemployed.
New Zealand's youth unemployment rate is 17.1% - a steep hike from 10.1% in 2007.
While it is concerning to think New Zealand has 65,600 unemployed young people, it is alarming to discover half of them are in the "disengaged, most at-risk" category.
According to Statistics New Zealand figures, 31,000 people aged 15 to 19 are not in employment, education or training (Neet).
Otago's Neet youth in that age bracket number 1400, of which Dunedin is home to the majority.
That is more than all the pupils of the largest secondary school in Otago sitting at home, or kicking a can down a street, with no definable destination in life other than the dole queue.
Andy Kilsby, who is the new chief executive of Dunedin-based youth development organisation Malcam Trust, has some clear ideas why up to 10% of our young people are disconnecting from mainstream life and not able to find their way into employment.
Employers are looking for workers who will "connect, commit and engage". But our society is raising a generation a sizeable group of which finds those concepts alien, Mr Kilsby said.
And it is not confined to any one socio-economic group.
"We're seeing as many troubles coming off the hill as off the flat," he says, referring to Dunedin's wealthier hill suburbs.
The breakdown of family and other relationships; time-poor working parents hoping schools will instil core values; children growing up without a clear sense of self, but the firm impression that life and its components are disposable; vulnerable unsupported young people whose security and confidence is flattened by life's hiccups . . .
It is no surprise they are having trouble finding the path, and that if they do end up banging on an employer's door they are being turned away, he said.
"If Mum or Dad walked away when I was 5, and then replacement relationships have broken up . . . [and] I've been able to drift away from school and family with no big consequences, why should I engage?
I don't have to turn up to work if I don't want to, do I?" he explained.
Lack of self-knowledge is common, Mr Kilsby said.
He cites the example of a young man whose dream job was being a Formula One pit crew member. He had not spent much time around engines and did not particularly like cars , but thought it seemed "a cool job".
More talking revealed he ably took care of his parent's section including the lawns, and flower and vegetable gardens.
Had he considered a career in horticulture?
No.
The young man was now training as a cadet gardener, Mr Kilsby said.
"He didn't have a sense of self - that the things he was interested in should be key to what he was doing.
"This is common.
"Layer it with [negative] life experiences and a sense of a disposable life, and you have a classic case of a disconnected person.
"Toss in a recessionary crisis and, if you have a sizeable disaffected generation, then you need to have concerns.
"What we have in Europe, with 50% youth unemployment, is deeply troubling.
"It's somewhere we can't afford to go."
It is a concern Ms Wilkinson raised when she addressed Asia-Pacific labour ministers at the ILO conference.
"This has long-term implications in terms of generating a well-prepared and motivated workforce of tomorrow and, as we have seen, the potential for discontent and social upheaval where youth unemployment is endemic."
Governments and the international community needed "comprehensive responses", she said.
In just over a week, the Government's radical shake-up of youth welfare services takes effect.
It is targeted at the most at-risk 16 to 17-year-olds - those 14,000 Neet youth who history shows will almost all end up on welfare by the time they are 18.
Under the catchy moniker Youth Pipeline, the Government has contracted youth service providers to manage and support those young people to ensure they are in education, employment, or training.
The goal is 85% of 18-year-olds attaining NCEA level 2, or an equivalent qualification, by 2017.
The Government will also stop paying the full youth benefit to 16- and 17-year-olds who are not supported by their parents, and teen parents aged 16 to 18.
Instead, rent and bills will be paid directly on their behalf, and most of the rest of their benefit will be credited to a payment card that can only be used at specified stores such as supermarkets.
They will receive $50 "pocket-money" per week, plus "incentive payments" of $10 a week if they remain in education or training, or attend budgeting or parenting courses.
In a late change, the Government decided young people will be able to "earn the right" to manage their own money.
Other initiatives to support Youth Pipeline include simplified and more flexible employment programmes, introduced at the start of June, and a new framework to help pupils identify what skills they will need for the tertiary education and employment they want, which will start in November.
John Allen, who is the Ministry of Social Development's southern region commissioner, says the new approach will allow it to "intervene before problems become entrenched" and focus resources "where they will make the most difference".
"We know these young people need a package of intensive support including getting help with financial planning, getting their bills sorted so they don't get into debt, and getting back into education or training so they can get an appropriate job," Dunedin-based Mr Allen said.
But critics say the pipeline the Government wants at-risk youth to slide or crawl through seems too narrow and unbending.
"There is a high risk that the most challenging young people will not fit the model that has been developed and will have no access to financial support if they do not remain engaged with the provider," Dr Atwool said.
Youth worker Erin Young said she feared for the future of young people who were no longer the Government's target group.
Miss Young was employed by Work'n It Out, the southern region youth transition service which was done away with in favour of Youth Pipeline.
Work'n It Out tracked and offered transition support to all southern school-leavers up to the age of 20.
In her experience, most school-leavers, whether they fitted the Neet category or not, needed support to transition successfully to employment.
"The labour market gets tougher each year," she said.
"Any typical mainstream young person will still struggle to get a job."
Minister of Social Development Paula Bennett disagrees.
She said research showed 85% of school-leavers did not need additional support.
Help would be available to 15-, 18- and 19-year-olds who needed it, she said.
The Malcam Trust is among those offering programmes to older disengaged youth.
Its new 16-week Altitude programme for 18 to 25-year-olds aims to help participants and employers overcome the barriers that are stopping young people getting work.
Successful young applicants undergo a week-long induction designed to help them understand themselves and grapple with the attitudes and habits needed for successful employment.
They are then placed in work experience suited to their interests and potential, and mentored each step of the way as they also undertake three weeks' formal study.
Employers get a low-risk, up-close look at a potential employee, as well as playing a valuable role in the training and formation of young people.
Altitude is a partnership between the Malcam Trust, Otago Polytechnic and apprenticeship organisation 4Trades.
For Mr MacKenzie, the programme was a godsend.
At New Year, he reached the point of wanting change. Within a week he had spotted an advertisement for Altitude's pilot programme in the newspaper.
"I saw it as a beacon of hope," Mr MacKenzie said, "because I was trying to address the issues of what was in the way of getting into work."
Next week, he completes several months work experience as a trainee information technology support worker at Otago Polytechnic.
He hopes to soon get full-time work in telecommunications.
The goal from there is to save enough money to study digital animation and then become a 2-D character animator.
"This is the best thing that has happened to me . . . I've discovered I can be useful, I can be employed, and I can contribute."
