Young Americans continue to struggle getting jobs according to Brookings study "The Plummeting Labor Market Fortunes of Teens and Young Adults"

The Great Recession and its recovery have been a tough market for Americans ages 16-24 to find and keep jobs. While this may not seem like any kind of new information to most, the job loss is staggering. The employment rate for people ages 20-24 went from 72 percent in 2000 all the way down to 61 percent in 2011. And the employment rate for Americans ages 25-34 went from 82 percent in 2000 to 74 percent in 2011. Now the U.S. economy was rocking and rolling in the year 2000 and was recovering from a massive recession in 2011. Still, those are big drops. All of this is according to a new study by the conservative think tank The Brookings Institution. Brookings economists recently released the study, which relies on survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey. This 2014 report is called “The Plummeting Labor Market Fortunes of Teens and Young Adults.” "Individuals under age 54 were less likely to be working in 2011 than in 2000, with the sharpest declines among teens and young adults, while those 55 and over were more likely to be working in 2011," wrote the Brookings team of Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada, Mykhaylo Trubskyy, Martha Ross, Walter McHugh and Sherila Palma. To put these numbers in perspective, the employment rate for Americans ages 35-54 was 81 percent in 2000 and 76 percent in 2011. Meanwhile, Americans ages 55-64 saw their employment rates go from 58 percent in 2000 up to 60 percent in 2011. Similarly, Americans ages 65-74 saw their employment rates rise from 19 percent in 2000 to 25 percent in 2011. The Brookings team calls this phenomenon “the Great Age Twist” as people in their younger working ages are crowded out by much older workers. “A variety of factors contributed to older workers’ higher employment rates: delayed retirement due to lost savings from the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession; greater levels of education and experience compared to younger workers, which made them (older workers) more competitive job candidates in some cases; and higher average weekly earnings over time that created a higher opportunity cost of dropping out of the labor force,” wrote the Brookings team. Still, another wrinkle in their analysis is who among the younger workers are having the most difficult time getting and keeping jobs: lower-income and lower-educated Americans. “Teens in households with the lowest income levels had the lowest employment rates,” the Brookings team wrote. It’s that simple, more education and more worker experience means better chances of landing a job and keeping a job. And that doesn’t help the young, poor and poorly educated. That was illustrated by looking at Americans ages 20-24, whose employment rates dropped from 72 percent in 2000 to 60 percent in 2011. Yet here is a key finding: “In 2011, the employment rate of (college) degree holders was nearly double the rate of high school dropouts (46 percent).” This is a change from the 1950s through 1970s in America where people who did not go to college tended to earn more money and be more employed in their 20s than those who went to college – showing the advantage of work experience over higher education in the short term. But now in this modern economy we have employers who CAN demand workers with lots of education AND lots of work experience because of the abundance of available workers. The study also found that non-white Anglos had lower levels of employment. It is also concerning how the Brookings team looked at the employment characteristics of the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas (aka the bigger metro areas). For workers ages 20-24, the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission region was the worst in America for employment of these younger adults – with only a 52.9 percent employment rate. I love the McAllen region and am still trying to wrap my head around this. But I’ve been told this anecdotally by young people and workforce professionals in McAllen for years that it was an especially brutal market for young workers. The six members of the Brookings team conclude their short report with a series of suggestions about how to improve employment rates for younger workers. They have seven key suggestions and repeat the term “should” frequently. “Orient career-focused education and training to the regional labor market. Whether operated out of a high school, community college, nonprofit, union, public workforce entity, or other organization, career-focused education must be based on quantitative labor market data that outlines major industries and in-demand occupations in a given region. This quantitative data should be coupled with qualitative intelligence from regional employers about their workforce and skill needs,” the Brookings team declared. Yes, in an ideal world this should be done. But schools (where the students reside) and employers (where the hiring managers reside) are separate territories. It is frustrating to hear teachers complain that they cannot get employers to come to their campus while local managers loudly complain that teachers don’t know what employers need from future workers. “Link high school to post-secondary credentials. High school is becoming the new middle school – an important educational milestone, but lacking the intrinsic value except to prepare youth for post-secondary education,” they wrote and cited the Alamo Academies efforts in San Antonio to get students community college credits while in high school. “To address weak demand for labor, create transitional subsidized jobs programs for young people to help them support themselves, develop work experience, and gain a foothold in the labor market,” said the Brookings Institution team, but they did not explain the source of these tax-payer dollars to fund such employment programs. “The Plummeting Labor Market Fortunes of Teens and Young Adults” is a sobering look at the employment numbers for “young people” under 55. And while the report includes a broad and vague wish list of possible solutions, the report still underscores the concern that many of us have about a “lost generation” of Americans now in their 20s and 30s who are behind in their career paths, which would put them behind in life-time earnings and behind in picking up the work experience they need to become leaders of tomorrow.