Youth Unemployment Hit A Record High This Summer

Experienced professionals aren't the only workers struggling to find jobs.

In July, 51.1 percent of Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 years old were unemployed, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This marks the first time since 1948, when the government first started collecting this data, that less than half of all U.S. youth were employed in July.

Each year from April to July, the youth labor force grows sharply as high school and college students -- and recent graduates -- search for summer jobs. This summer, the youth labor force grew by 2.4 million to a total of 22.9 million in July, which is typically the summertime peak for youth employment, while the number of youths employed grew 1.8 million to 18.6 million, according to the BLS.

Though the increase in youth employment was slightly larger than last year's increase of 1.6 million, the percentage of the total youth population that was employed in July dropped 2.5 percentage points to 48.9 percent. This percentage has dropped by about 20 percentage points since its peak in July 1989. And, as the Wall Street Journal notes, rampant youth unemployment is not just an American problem.

Among major demographic groups in the U.S., the jobless rates for young men (20.5 percent),
young African-Americans (33.4 percent), and young Asian-Americans (21.6 percent) continued to rise from a year earlier. The unemployment rates for young women (17.5 percent), young whites (16.2 percent), and young Hispanics (22.1 percent) hardly changed, the BLS reports.

Comments

[Harrier]

12:23 PM on 09/05/2010

The worst hit area of this economy is those over 55. They are being forced into early retirement because companies know they can get away with this. Nobody is writing about that group. Young men and women will always make it because their salary demands are not that great. They can always go back to school.

[Golden Child]

05:04 PM on 09/01/2010

High unemployment numbers are no surprise. Young adults with college educations are also faring terribly. America is not even in the top ten countries for employing college educated professionals ages 25-34. But really, what do you expect when you outsource thousands and thousands of living wage jobs overseas? The unregulated global economy run by greedy corporations has exported the American middle class lifestyle and is slowly importing third world poverty in America. This is not rocket science.

[LDoren]

08:41 AM on 09/01/2010

Alternative title: Minimum Wage Laws Work Wonders.

[ZiloRS]

04:23 PM on 09/05/2010

Minimum wage laws, while not perfect, allow me to pay my modest rent. If I had been old enough to work years ago when it still hovered around 5 dollars an hour and the recession hit, me and many people my age would be homeless. But being as how you're probably not young, you wouldn't know anything about that.

[eric14]

07:53 AM on 09/01/2010

A certain percentage will find it very difficult to acquire work ethic ever and never find permanent work. What percentage of unemployable is economically bearable? Now double it.What would happen then?

Job creation would be a good idea.

[300millionblindmice]

07:17 PM on 08/31/2010

This is the best piece of news I've heard in some time. Of course it is terrible but maybe these kids will see that our generation has allowed the gov to become so corrupt and engaged in criminal enterprise that they will march in mass

[ZiloRS]

04:25 PM on 09/05/2010

Nope. A certain percentage will go on as if nothing ever happened because it doesn't affect them personally. Another percentage will become more socially conscious as they age. Little will change.

[booki]

02:37 PM on 08/31/2010

who is the mod on this site that has eradicated my 2 innocent comments to Blueskies99?

[tacevad]

08:48 AM on 08/31/2010

Article in Forbes touting the LOWERING of minimum wage using all the same old false arguments.

[OG]

07:59 AM on 08/31/2010

what not enough Mcjobs! You want jobs? stop focusing on excessive national defense spending! Move to to the human resource arena! Health, education and the welfare of our citizens. When we cannot meet the basic needs of our own citizens with adaquet education of our youth, health care for all it's citizens and public safety reduced fire and police protectionand a decaying infrastructure we will enter the lost decades!

[Asmodean1]

01:45 PM on 08/31/2010

I thought the issue was about "youth summer jobs"?

[RestorationAmerica]

01:44 AM on 08/31/2010

Recovery 101 – Have we seen much bang for the bucks spent in expectation of stimulating the US economy? The answer is No!
The only solution to really get the economy going and create jobs is to offer a residential mortgage interest tax credit, governed by the same higher income phase out rules as the current mortgage interest tax deduction. A credit rather than just a deduction will cause money to pour money into the US housing market and create jobs for real economic growth. The cost to taxpayers for such a program would be far less than the already spent stimulus money and spur the US economy enough to pay for itself. Without such a solution, we may continue to stagnate as we have for the last year and a half.

[OG]

08:03 AM on 08/31/2010

please sir can I have a living wage? you see I was able to make my morgage payment I was unable to pay my propery taxes and insurance premiums and pay my utilities let alone put food on the table with a mcjob wage

[mashtoe]

01:26 AM on 08/31/2010

We don't need American workers. We just import all the cheap H-1b workers we want already. Look at Microsoft, we take in over 5,000 H-1b a year...about as many Americans as we laid off in 2009/2010 alone.

[sarabono]

01:05 AM on 08/31/2010

Time for a new WPA ?

[mashtoe]

01:29 AM on 08/31/2010

Why in the world would we do a WPA? The whole goal of both parties is to see US workers suffer so wages go down. It's great for profits.

Look up H-1b and then tell me you honestly believe the Democrats care about high unemployment.

[Trout007]

11:52 PM on 08/30/2010

Well since we banned all jobs paying below $7.50/hr what do we expect of people whose job skills are not worth that much yet?

[sporty1]

12:27 PM on 09/01/2010

Why are you reading Robert Reich? I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh.

[hclinton]

11:17 PM on 08/30/2010

This data must be bad.. are you telling me that barak and his stimulus isn't working?? Nissan is very happy with the $$ they are getting to export cars here and they have put on extra workers

[martyweimer]

11:10 PM on 08/30/2010

What, no shovel ready jobs for teens either? Darn, I don't understand.

[thejongardner]

10:45 PM on 08/30/2010

there's a HOT new post on why no one wants to work for american companies here:

http://bit.ly/9LGkhl