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Posted on 02/23/2002 5:03:47 AM PST by sarcasm
BOSTON -- Priscilla Ramirez has never had stock options. She doesn't have high-tech skills. She has no MBA to fall back on. And she isn't spending her jobless months traveling through Asia.
She is 19, and simply wants work as a receptionist or office assistant to support herself and her year-old daughter.
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| Laid-off dot-commers and the hyper-educated get the headlines, but Bryant Jones of Boston, left, and Priscilla Ramirez of Brookline, Mass., more truly depict the jobless picture. Associated Press Click for larger photo |
She is also, a recent study argues, a more accurate picture of unemployment than the laid-off dot-commers and hyper-educated entrepreneurs who have gotten most of the attention lately.
"My age right now, if you want to find a decent job, unless it's like Walgreens, it's really hard to get a foot in the door," Ramirez said, sitting in a classroom at the Boston community center where she has been taking a course to learn to write resumes and cover letters.
She has been unable to find a job since she graduated from high school. A half-dozen interviews have produced no offers that pay enough or meet her child-care needs.
The study, by economists Andrew Sum of Northeastern University and Robert Taggart of the University of Delaware, argues that young people ages 16 to 24 have been hit harder by unemployment in this recession than a cursory look at the numbers indicates. In fact, the study says this recession has been harder on younger workers than past downturns.
The U.S. unemployment rate, 5.6 percent overall in January, 7.5 percent in Washington state, measures only active job seekers. The researchers focused instead on a broader measure that also accounts for job seekers who have given up looking.
Working from federal unemployment data, the economists report that more than half of the 2.1 million jobs lost in this recession have been at the expense of young people.
The percentage of employed young people fell 4 percentage points to 54.4 percent in 2001, nearly 3 points below its lowest level in the 1990-91 recession, the study found. The 4-point drop is nearly four times greater than that for older adults.
High school graduates with no college -- people like Ramirez -- fared the worst of any group in relative terms, with the percentage of those employed dropping 4.6 points. College grads suffered the smallest decline in their employment level, which fell just 0.7 percentage points.
Other studies have estimated that 100,000 dot-com jobs were lost in 2001, which pales in comparison with the more than 1 million jobs lost by 16- to 24-year-olds.
"The Enron collapse, which fills the daily newspapers, weekly magazines and the nightly TV news, affected only 5,000 workers directly, while the recession has eliminated 220 times as many jobs for young adults," Sum and Taggart wrote.
Why are things worse this time? "Last time around, even though jobs fell a lot, the young adult population was actually declining. There were fewer young adults because of the baby bust," Sum said. "This time, it's growing."
Also, temporary labor and leasing jobs, popular among young people, have been hard hit, along with the dot-com world.
Young black workers fared the worst, losing in 2001 nearly a decade's worth of gains in their overall employment level. They had gained 9 points in the previous eight years and in 2001 lost 7 points, Sum said.
Many young people who lost their jobs have chosen to go back to school. Ramirez wants to go to college to study interior design, but needs a job to afford it.
From what she can see, Ramirez said, young applicants are facing a particularly tough time.
"A lot of older people are settling for more entry-level jobs, which is kind of kicking people down," she said. "Before, a lot of entry-level jobs, a teenager would have filled that position, but now anybody would take it."
Where is the father?
When we say to her "Don't have sex, get an education" - we're cranky conservatives imposing our values on her.
Now they want our money to fix her mistakes.
And they wonder why we're angry.
Frankly speaking, she is a BAD risk!!
So before you start pointing fingers please remember compassionate conservatism.
Being female hispanic, in Boston. Cmon! The liberals universites are there waiting to increase their diversity. Sign up!
But wait, i guess that would require some work and commitment wouldnt it?
sheesh
She should have considered all this before having a baby with no husband. Where are her own parents? Why didn't they teach her to wait until she was educated, older and married before having a baby? Does she think her skills should qualify her for something more than Walgreens?
And today, she will have a baby shower! Thirty years ago they would have been embarrassed --and should be today.
The sad thing is, regardless of money, when a young girl gets pregnant, the carefree, fun years are gone.
She has been unable to find a job since she graduated from high school. A half-dozen interviews have produced no offers that pay enough or meet her child-care needs.
Okay. She's 19. When did she graduate? Last June? Last January?
"A half-dozen interviews" Eight months? Two months? Longer? I would suggest that part of the problem is that she's not looking REAL hard.
Doesn't look like it to me. It seems what she wants is to be paid a very large amount of money despite her lack of marketable skills. She wants a job to pay enough to maintain the standard of living to which she aspires, while covering all her child care expenses, but she lacks a college degree or specialized training. Oh yes, and a BMW would be nice, too.
The title of this article: "Joblessness hits the poorly educated hardest by far" is so pathetically obvious that it is hardly news. The solution is education, not hand outs.
Why should she have to go to college. The government should just give unwed mothers advanced degrees. Scholarships are a waste. All they learn in College is how evil and corrupt Republicans are. They can learn that just waiting in the unemployment line.
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