It will come as a shock to absolutely no one that young people have been hit hardest by the recession. Our actual employment rate is at 46%. Which may explain why almost every single person I know is reenrolling in school or working under the table childcare or just hovering in abject poverty.
These are not happy days for America’s young and striving. Indeed, as the economy has rocked and tumbled its way through 2009, spewing jobs like a sea-sick tourist, these have become very, very bad days. In September, the unemployment rate for people between the ages of 16 and 24 hovered morosely at 18.1 percent, nearly double the national average for that month. At the same time, the actual employment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds dropped to a startling 46 percent, the grimmest such figure on record since 1948, the year the government began keeping track. Taken together, this same group of young people has lost more than 2.5 million jobs since the economy began deflating in December 2007, roughly one-third of all the jobs lost, making them the hardest-hit age group of the recession.
And it gets bleaker. Bad as the youth unemployment numbers are, the underemployment numbers are even more distressing, with young people once again taking the hit. During the second quarter of 2009, for instance, the underemployment rate for workers under 25 was an alarming 31.9 percent; for workers between 25 and 34 the underemployment rate was 17.1 percent.
That just makes the whole Deferred Associate program even more fucking irritating. Way to go assholes, taking up TWO GODDAMNED ENTRY-LEVEL jobs in the market.
When I first started looking for post-graduate work (a fucking year ago now), it was pointed out by various internship employers that at least our future employment prospects wouldn’t be harmed by a year or so of crap/non-employment. It’s not like it can be held against us.
“These effects are long-lasting; they’re not short and measly-lasting,” explains Sum, citing several studies suggesting that a slow employment start can have long-term consequences. In the case of white male college graduates, for instance, an influential study showed that for as long as fifteen years after college, those who graduated into the recession-rocked economy of the early 1980s earned less than those who graduated into a sunny employment market. Equally disturbing: those who work only part time when younger, as so many young people must now do, see little benefit to their future wages compared with those working full time.
“We are throwing out of the labor market those kids who will benefit the most from the work experience they get, and they will lose that for the rest of their lives,” Sum warns. “That’s why it really is a depression for young workers. And I don’t use that word lightly.”
First reaction: Of course the ‘influential study’ about the long term effects of graduating in a recession focused on white men. It’s not like women and minorities are facing additional employment hurdles that could be worth studying!
Second reaction: Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckityfuck.
I had no expectations of a 6 figure salary. But I would really like to be employed at a worthwhile job that pays me something slightly above the poverty level. Granted it does provide a potentially socially acceptable reason for non-procreation.
UPDATE: The NYTimes provides an interactive unemployment chart taking race and education into account. Granted it is largely useless to the majority of people I know as it doesn’t account for gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, graduate school, or immigrant status.
