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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."
Who's the genius who thought that header up
Same as "Sky is blue on cloudless day?"
Clearly, a high school degree is not the ticket to success that it was a generation ago and a degree is now becoming a requirement for even basic entry positions.
Here in Nevada the state set up the "Millenium Scholarship" a few years back which provided a free ride to either state university (UNR, UNLV) for anyone that graduated from a Nevada high school in the year 2000. Four years of tuition free just for graduating high school in the year 2000.
At first I thought the idea was crazy, thinking it would bankrupt the state and overcrowd the colleges, but a report came out a few months ago that said that only 25% of eligible recipients have taken advantage of the scholarship. If you subtract the percentage of Nevada high school graduates that would have gone on to a Nevada university regardless of the scholarship (the national average of college-educated people is 25%), then, as the saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water..."
These kids are told all through school that they are great, wonderful, no one is better than they, and whatever they do (no matter how crappy), it is the best. It's no wonder they have unrealistic job expectations. They think that if they just SHOW UP, because they are so great, they should be paid top dollar.
Frankly speaking, she is a BAD risk!!
Agreed
I just terminated a guy from a 35K to 40K job because he was a single father that could not make to work 5 days a week because of his kid.
When I interveiwed him, we covered that subject. He said his mother was the babysitter, in real life the kid was in daycare.
I told him this is a 5 or 6 day a week job, being absent was a serious issue, three times absent and you are gone without a doctors excuse.
He made it 4 weeks.
The same on that came up with this header (it's posted 6 posts down on the main page): Anti-Semitism rife among terrorists
True but she didn't need to start having sex without being married. She also has to realize that she has no more skills than illegal immigrants who she must compete with for jobs. They're happy to work for less than minimum wage without benefits.
"Ignorance Causes Joblessness" There, that's better.
Conressman Billybob
You got that right. As I saw all the underpinnings of our economy looking like they were ready to tank during the dot-com bubble, I finished bachelor degree after putting it off for a number of years.
Even with my BS, it is hard to even get an interview anywhere now, let alone a confirmation letter that a given company even received your cover letter and resume for positions they posted.
I started my masters degree about 6 months ago, am working pretty hard at it, am about 12 credits shy of finishing it, and STILL cant get an interview, even for jobs that I am overqualified for.
BTW - I am currently employed, with a very secure job, but am looking for more challenging and engaging work.
Kay Coles James, Director of the Office of Personnel Management in the Bush Administration was Secretary of Health and Human Resources for Virginia Governor George Allen when Welfare Reform was passed in Virginia. She shepherded through the legislation and implementation.
She was the child of a single mother on welfare who grew up in some of the poorest areas in Richmond. I've heard her say on many occasions, "as long as there are toilets to clean, my children will have food on the table."
In other words, all work is good work, there is no such thing as a "bad" job. With only a high school education, this young woman should be glad that Walgreen's wants to hire her.
This job seeker has not learned the first thing about finding employment. There is nothing "simple" about the work she seeks. Perhaps her attitude is her biggest liability.
Yoo hoo, "I want to work as a receptionist" you have to have computer skills. Office Assistants do more than file, and can we be certain that her "high school" education included alphabetization. We hire a lot of entry-level positions, and the skill level (up to and including the ability to read and write) is very low. Don't have kids if you aren't married, and get some skills........
In other words, she's getting job offers, but is refusing to take them for the stated reasons. You have to start at the bottom and work your way...
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