Young People See Record High Joblessness
While the labor market is holding steady, its not a good time to be looking for a jobparticularly if youre young (, subscription).
Whats going on: Recent college and high school graduates are facing an employment crisis. Theoverall national unemployment rateremains around 4%, but fornew college graduateslooking for work, it is much higher: 6.6% over the past 12 months ending in May.
- Thats the highest level for this age group in a decade, not counting the COVID-19 unemployment increase.
- By contrast, jobseekers aged 35 to 44 with bachelors degrees had a 2.2% unemployment rate over the past year.
Whats different now: Young graduates typically face a higher unemployment rate than their counterparts who have been in the workforce longer, but the gap is growing wider between older workers and the young.
Why its happening: Theres a general slowdown in hiring right now.
- While it hasnt had much of an effect on people who already have jobs (because layoffs have stayed low), it has hit those with the least experience.
- With employers turning more cautious on hires, they are less inclined to gamble on workers with thinner r矇sum矇s or skill sets.
Worse for high school grads: High school graduates ages 18 to 19 with no college [experience] averaged an unemployment rate of 14.5% over the past 12 months. That is up from 13.3% over the prior 12-month period.
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