Youth unemployment rate

[CARLHAYDEN]

The dead end kids Young, unemployed and facing tough futureBy RICHARD WILNER

Last Updated: 4:45 AM, September 27, 2009

Posted: 1:34 AM, September 27, 2009

     The unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent -- a post-World War II high, according to the Labor Dept. -- meaning millions of Americans are staring at the likelihood that their lifetime earning potential will be diminished and, combined with the predicted slow economic recovery, their transition into productive members of society could be put on hold for an extended period of time

And worse, without a clear economic recovery plan aimed at creating entry-level jobs, the odds of many of these young adults -- aged 16 to 24, excluding students -- getting a job and moving out of their parents' houses are long. Young workers have been among the hardest hit during the current recession -- in which a total of 9.5 million jobs have been lost.
              
"It's an extremely dire situation in the short run," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute. "This group won't do as well as their parents unless the jobs situation changes."
              
Al Angrisani, the former assistant Labor Department secretary under President Reagan, doesn't see a turnaround in the jobs picture for entry-level workers and places the blame squarely on the Obama administration and the construction of its stimulus bill.
              
"There is no assistance provided for the development of job growth through small businesses, which create 70 percent of the jobs in the country," Angrisani said in an interview last week. "All those [unemployed young people] should be getting hired by small businesses."
              
There are six million small businesses in the country, those that employ less than 100 people, and a jobs stimulus bill should include tax credits to give incentives to those businesses to hire people, the former Labor official said.
              
"If each of the businesses hired just one person, we would go a long way in growing ourselves back to where we were before the recession," Angrisani noted.
              
During previous recessions, in the early '80s, early '90s and after Sept. 11, 2001, unemployment among 16-to-24 year olds never went above 50 percent. Except after 9/11, jobs growth followed within two years.
              
A much slower recovery is forecast today. Shierholz believes it could take four or five years to ramp up jobs again.
              
A study from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a government database, said the damage to a new career by a recession can last 15 years. And if young Americans are not working and becoming productive members of society, they are less likely to make major purchases -- from cars to homes -- thus putting the US economy further behind the eight ball.
              
Angrisani said he believes that Obama's economic team, led by Larry Summers, has a blind spot for small business because no senior member of the team -- dominated by academics and veterans of big business -- has ever started and grown a business.
              
"The Reagan administration had people who knew of small business," he said.
              
"They should carve out $100 billion right now and create something like $5,000 to $6,000 job credits that would drive the hiring of young, idled workers by small business."
              
Angrisani said the stimulus money going to extending unemployment benefits is like a narcotic that is keeping the unemployed content -- but doing little to get them jobs.
              
Labor Dept. statistics also show that the number of chronically unemployed -- those without a job for 27 weeks or more -- has also hit a post-WWII high.
              
It's an extremely dire situation in the short run," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute. "This group won't do as well as their parents unless the jobs situation changes."

[phk]

This is pretty bad.

Small business growth (through encouraging entrepreneurship and nudging people toward a particular niche) is the key. Businesses that start up in bad times will be more efficient than their counterparts that started in expansionary times.

[CARLHAYDEN]

This is pretty bad.

Small business growth (through encouraging entrepreneurship and nudging people toward a particular niche) is the key. Businesses that start up in bad times will be more efficient than their counterparts that started in expansionary times.

Actually its terrifying, IMHO.

Future employment is largely based on past employment history.

Lots of employers do NOT want to be the first to hire a young person with no employment history.

[phk]

This is pretty bad.

Small business growth (through encouraging entrepreneurship and nudging people toward a particular niche) is the key. Businesses that start up in bad times will be more efficient than their counterparts that started in expansionary times.

Actually its terrifying, IMHO.

Future employment is largely based on past employment history.

Lots of employers do NOT want to be the first to hire a young person with no employment history.

Yeah. The stimulus plan should focus on helping small businesses that provide young workers with internships to put on the experience section of their resume. Wouldn't be a benefit at the moment, but actually having something to put down would be better than nothing.

[CARLHAYDEN]

This is pretty bad.

Small business growth (through encouraging entrepreneurship and nudging people toward a particular niche) is the key. Businesses that start up in bad times will be more efficient than their counterparts that started in expansionary times.

Actually its terrifying, IMHO.

Future employment is largely based on past employment history.

Lots of employers do NOT want to be the first to hire a young person with no employment history.

Yeah. The stimulus plan should focus on helping small businesses that provide young workers with internships to put on the experience section of their resume. Wouldn't be a benefit at the moment, but actually having something to put down would be better than nothing.

Actually, it can be VERY important.

Potential future employers are not merely interested in technical skills, but also as to whether you have a demonstrated capacity to show up for work on a consistent basis, on time and are able to work with others in the workplace for a significant period of time (that's a reason why one should not quit an unpleasant job after a short period of time).

[opebo]

Youth unemployment is a normal and necessary condition of right-wing (neo-liberal) economic policy, Carl/Phnk.

[phk]

Youth unemployment is a normal and necessary condition of right-wing (neo-liberal) economic policy, Carl/Phnk.

Why?

[TeePee4Prez]

I actually think Reagan's guy has a point.  I also think a tax credit should be given for employers to hire an unemployed worker.  There are jobs out there, but employers show heavy reluctance to pull someone off unemployment.  The credit would in most cases pay for itself in the long run.  I think some of this stimulus money should be set aside for such things rather than a lot of wasteful spending.  Hey, it's great I'm getting unemployment benefits right now, but I'd rather be working.  I know for a fact that in many phone interviews I got one of the questions is "Are you currently working?"  when it's clear I'm not on my resume.  I know that it's a screening mechanism and right away I'm done.  And you'd think with the economy it would get better, but employers are actually getting more assinine on that fact.

[opebo]

Youth unemployment is a normal and necessary condition of right-wing (neo-liberal) economic policy, Carl/Phnk.

Why?

Capitalism requires that permanent 'reserve army of the unemployed', kept there by various aspects/arms of public policy, to hold wages to the minimum subsistence level.   Naturally those who languish in unemployment will mostly be youths and ethnically disadvantaged persons.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I know for a fact that in many phone interviews I got one of the questions is "Are you currently working?"  when it's clear I'm not on my resume.

Ah, thank goodness for the nebulous canned response of doing "freelance work."

[TeePee4Prez]

I know for a fact that in many phone interviews I got one of the questions is "Are you currently working?"  when it's clear I'm not on my resume.

Ah, thank goodness for the nebulous canned response of doing "freelance work."

I had a former colleague tell me that I can use him for a reference saying I'm doing tax returns on the side for him.  He maybe onto something.

[Alexander Hamilton]

This is pretty bad.

Small business growth (through encouraging entrepreneurship and nudging people toward a particular niche) is the key. Businesses that start up in bad times will be more efficient than their counterparts that started in expansionary times.

Actually its terrifying, IMHO.

Future employment is largely based on past employment history.

Lots of employers do NOT want to be the first to hire a young person with no employment history.

Yeah. The stimulus plan should focus on helping small businesses that provide young workers with internships to put on the experience section of their resume. Wouldn't be a benefit at the moment, but actually having something to put down would be better than nothing.

Agreed

[titaniumtux]

Ah yes, internships are great! http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/07/20/104-unpaid-internships/

They certainly help kids work up their experience in their field.

Kind of scary to think that the USofA is hitting up similar unemployment rates to those found in developing countries...maybe wages will have to go down so that employers could afford to pay more staff...

Support your local Wal-Mart so that single mums can have jobs! w00t!

[phk]

The substitution effect will dominate pretty strongly for youngsters, I conjecture, at least once the expansion starts (in terms of job creation that is).

[Sam Spade]

The unemployment numbers released today were particularly bad, much worse than even than the topline numbers say.

More later.

[Beet]

Hours worked declined to 33.0. It looks like the much vaunted rise to 33.1 in July and August was just statistical noise. The July loss has been revised upward twice now, and is now -307k vs -247k first reported. Birth death adjustment was low, which should make some of the critics such as Barry Ritholtz happy.

It appears this report was leaked to Goldman Sachs (again) yesterday, which explains the sell-off at the end of trading and what, in my rudimentary knowledge of technical analysis, looked like a gap down this morning. Anyway, it appears that jobs are the new inflation.

[Tender Branson]

Where are they getting these numbers from ? 52% ?

In todays release, it says that 25.9% among 16-19 year-olds and 14.9% of 20-24 year-olds are unemployed ...

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t07.htm