Teenage wasteland

This is possibly, maybe even quite definitely, the worst market for employment in the last half century for Americans. The market is still comatose with no signs of a resurgence coming forth any time soon and even as economists say that the recession is behind us and things can get only better, unemployment levels still are abysmally low. The figures released by the Department of Labor for August reveal a 9.6% rate of unemployment for August and the situation looks even worse when you factor in those that are underemployed across the country.

The news isn’t good universally, but these figures hold out the worst for teenagers that will be worst hit by this recession and the widespread wave of unemployment that it brought on. If you though that the general level of unemployment is bad for everyone from a blue collar worker to a white collar manager, you’d be right. If you thought that it wasn’t much worse for a teenager, you’d be wrong. Very, very wrong; compare pre-recessionary figures of unemployment that hovered at 15% to what it is now, well in excess of 25%. The recession has struck generation next badly, and it reminds one of that angst filled song by The Who that was so memorable, ‘Baba O’Riley’.

“Don’t cry
Don’t raise your eye
It’s only teenage wasteland.”

If you want a more widespread measure of employment levels, perhaps you can use the employment to population ratio as a measure of market health and even by this measure there is no pretty picture to be painted for tomorrow’s adults. Their unemployment rate has fallen by 20 percentage points over the last decade alone and you have to factor teens that have chosen school over work into these figures, but even then the outlook is bleak. Indeed, everyone has had a very hard time getting the right job, but then who hasn’t? Every rose has its thorn and so it is here as well.

Then you have to factor in the usual facts; most teens are freshers and don’t offer much to employers by way of experience and some not even by way of skill. This leaves them at the bottom of the pecking order. That is why older workers have taken away entry-level jobs with greater ease, leading to widespread under-employment. And then there’s a large immigrant population too that has taken away teenage job prospects. The woes just keep on piling up and the alarm bells, they are a-ringing. For those that are investing in an education or something extracurricular instead of work at a young age, this might not be as bad as it sounds. Investing in human capital is always an excellent idea, but what of youngsters from low-income families? The erosion in the job market will hit them hardest, and the fallout of this could be potentially disastrous.