Posted on 07/03/2009 8:09:13 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Not since 1965 has it been so hard for teens to get work.
Think an unemployment rate of 9.5% is bad? It could be worse. You could be a teenager.
For teenagers, the summer job market has not been so bleak in generations. During what should be the start of the bustling summer job season, the unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds who want work is 24%--the worst since 1965.
The outlook for teen jobs is so bleak that it's weighing down the entire employment report, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Thursday. The country is headed for an entire decade with no job growth. In June, the report showed unemployment climbed to 9.6% from 9.5%, and 467,000 jobs were lost, thanks in large part to the decline in jobs for teens. (See "The Job Market's Grim Picture.")
"The biggest problem [in the report] was that the summer job market for teenagers was nonexistent," says Joel Naroff, of Naroff Economic Advisors, in a note. "The 24% unemployment rate for this group was the second-highest since the end of World War II. While teenagers comprise only 4% of the workforce, they made up over 22% of the increase in unemployment in June."
In June, there were 5.6 million jobs for teenagers, down from 6.3 million a year ago, and nowhere near the level of the late 1990s, the golden age for teen employment. In July of 1999, there were a record 8.8 million working teens.
"The economy has, of course, been bad for the restaurants and retail stores in which many teens work, but more is at play," says Kristen Lopez Eastlick, senior research analyst for the Employment Policies Institute. "The general unemployment rate is so much higher that your hiring market is going to be represented with more
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Hope & Change. Young people love him.
Well, given my screen name...
Most of the teens who bothered to vote cast theirs for Obama. But then, they were largely following in the footsteps of their equally deluded elders and professors.
I notice that the first two people who comment on this article at Forbes both mention that illegal aliens are grabbing many jobs that would otherwise go to teens.
And they correctly blame Forbes for supporting that.
Teens have normally climbed the ladder from the bottom up. But those jobs are now taken largely by illegals.
I just scored a second job at a local Gelato shop - if I can get 2 jobs, these people can surely scare up one.
Teen jobs around here have been tough for a while. The car washes and most grocery store checkers and fast food counter people are all illegals (maybe that’s too harsh- but few are English-speakers).
Here in California, even during boom times teenagers are competing with illegal aliens, and retirees for entry level jobs. Those who can’t make it on their Social Security, will take a part time job at a fast food place to make ends meet.
Mayhap because the jobs normally taken by teens are now taken by older adults that have the ability to use basic math, have strong verbal skills and … yes, are reliable.
Don’t worry, teens. The coming increase in the minimum wage is going to boost entry-level hiring! All will be well.
“Here in California, even during boom times teenagers are competing with illegal aliens, and retirees for entry level jobs. Those who can’t make it on their Social Security, will take a part time job at a fast food place to make ends meet.”
When the citizens of a state vote for Dimocratz, they get Dimocratz policies. If you don’t like the policies, you know what you have to do.
That doesn’t explain Bush and McCain’s love affair with illegals.
My kids both took training as lifeguards. They had multiple job offers. Daughter is working as much as she wants, up to 70 hours a week; son has a more normal schedule.
Oh, and it's Bush's fault YAY.
Send the illegals home. Problem solved.
Minimum wage hikes wipe out entry level jobs.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
But whatever it takes it is more than congress can muster...
Problem not solved.
The primary cause for teen unemplolyment is minimum wage.
“That doesn’t explain Bush and McCain’s love affair with illegals.”
Bush didn’t have a love affair with illegals, he was willing to have the fence built, but didn’t necessarily support it - a fence-straddling stance. McCain left a vital part of his brain in the facility on Tho Nhuom street.
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