Your plight is alarming, wrong, detrimental and completely your own fault.
I don't concur with all of that. Not completely. However the detrimental effect is blatant.
Somewhere along the line, in the last 4 to 7 years, something changed for the worse in airline recruitment (specifically jet recruitment). When I came up, it appeared that we were the last group of individuals who were hanging onto the self-improver route by it's balls. Stories still surfaced regarding people who travelled from CPL/IR to a FIC and then FI, turboprop or air charter/taxi then jet. However it was dying rapidly, with more and more being left in the doldrums of flight instruction - I would include myself as an example until I forced myself to do something about it i.e.
'join the heard.'
When I received my blue book and later started on my FIC, CTC appeared well underway, integrated schools were spending unholy amounts in marketing a direct path to BA etc and Ryanair was churning away at their SSTR scheme (but still taking DE FOs and offering permanent contracts to entrants - just the same as Easyjet!!). The ways to bypass those rungs on the ladder were laid out, however they weren't as prevalent as it appears today. Now new entrants are unwilling to research option. People are leaving flight school and heading directly for FR or EZY without passing Go. It's as if they have it in their heads that this is considered to be their natural progression. Someone is feeding this to wanabees and the airlines, namely the two largest LCCs, subscribe to the very fact. Hence the disgraceful terms and conditions on offer. Their price to realise a burning ambition!
The recession hasn't created a slow down, it's only added to the degradation. Credit has become more limited, however people still have access to money. Unfortunately more and more of the people shedding out the money seem both devoid of talent and ethic. Individuals are presented with a minimum fuss route to the RHS of a jet. They clearly see their piers progressing onto a 737 or an A320 in a matter of two very short years; maximum! The light becomes blinding - it's the very same wet behind the ears nonsense that always existed. Mummy and Daddy want Junior to follow his dream however know absolutely nothing about what kind of damage has been done to the industry. Unless they looked far far beyond the glossy FTO brochures and the marketing rhetoric; how would they?
People who qualified 10 to 15 years ago cannot compare what is happening today to what was considered the norm back then. It's like comparing apples to oranges. They can however accept some portion of the blame to why all this sh1t has occurred.