Young, need job

I don’t know if you have seen this but the unemployment statistics are worse than awful among young people aged 16-24.  I’m not talking about the usual drivel about how minority youth can’t find jobs which is the standard template for a MSM story.  I’m talking about something we have never seen before.  Despite the talk of less unemployment, it’s a bleak story.  From a peak employment of 22 million in 2007, the 16-24 age group has slid to 17.5 million today.  In fact it hasn’t even made a comeback with the recovery started in July 2009.  So are all the young people dying off?

            Of course not! In fact the 16-24 population is a record.  They just aren’t working. The 55+ workers are.  From a fairly stagnant 16M in 2000 they have risen to 30M today.  These are stunning statistics.  We have never seen anything like this in our history.  Even the infamous 99% to 56% drop from 2007 to 2011 college grad employment saw a similar hesitancy to hire the young in the opening days of the Great Depression. But youth, with it’s beginner’s wages, eager energy, and new ideas has always made for a workforce that is desired by the boss.

            I don’t think you can conclude that the young are slackers today.  Employers are loading up on seniors because of supply.  A lot of seniors have paltry retirements and need a supplemental job.  Seniors often come with Medicare and—I don’t think, based on what I read in Obamacare—will require the purchase of healthcare by employers that typically amounts to about $5000 per employee.  And they often accept part-time. Moreover, employers are hunkering down reorganizing to minimize workers.  That often requires more duties and experienced folks to man the remaining jobs.  It’s going to get uglier for a young person to find a job. 

            It should be noted that total employment is 143M which is still down from the peak 144M in 2007.  Which is why so many are saying that the BLS is “cooking the books” to make unemployment look lower.  In fact they simply have reclassified vast numbers of workers as “not looking”.  If you counted all those workers, unemployment would be over 10%.  And that 143M counts a part-time job the same as a full-time job.  So lack of work is still quite bad.

            Here’s my advice if you are young and need a job.  1. Consider moving anywhere. Old workers won’t. Their house is paid for.  A lot of the jobs I have had don’t matter how smart you are, but can you take the grueling schedule.  Sure, you are willing to travel!   2. If you are in a hot field, that’s great but you need to get some sort of experience on your resume.  When I was at the university in the 1970’s, things in my field were bleak. Government labs and NASA were shutting down facilities.  Professorships were scarce. We joked about how we had to wait for someone to die in order to get a job.  I kept volunteering for curriculum committees and oversight committees and keeping a log of all the minimum wage jobs I had done.  You laugh.  Employers didn’t.  They saw someone who was willing to get his hands dirty, go the extra mile in his field.  3. If you aren’t in a hot field, study other industries and dream of how you could help them.  A lot of people say, I’ll do anything, but they haven’t studied the problems of business and can’t carry on an interview with a potential boss. Here’s the dirty truth.  A lot of people wind up with jobs not at all like what they studied in school.  Don’t worry about it.  Just adapt. 4. Take a stop-gap job.  Then when you have to explain that you graduated over a year ago and still don’t have a career, you say, “yeah, but I can’t stand not having something to do.  And I find it interesting to use my sociology in sales and marketing.”  This is music to a boss’s ears.  5. If you have the possibility of foreign study or just an excursion, go for the one that sounds like the most work. “I hiked the Appalacians”  doesn’t compare well with “I was a volunteer with the Forestry Service.” Better yet, go down the Chamber office and ask what you can do to volunteer.  They may put you on a board or give free training.  6. Get off the couch and write/blog. There is a need for all sorts of instructive ditties, but people fail to write about their experiences.  I once heard a world-renowned geo-scientist plead for this.  He said there is a need to write about the “craft of contouring a map”  or “how to load dynamite” in a seismic source and keep safe. Get published in a professional journal or on a trade website. Even if you are interviewing for something entirely different, there’s always a need for people who can document.  It will also help you articulate your skills. (“Being caretaker for my hospiced aunt was somewhat like working with an unskilled person because you have to be specific in instructions, but very respectful of the person. You also have to be aware of drug side effects.”)

            These are the kinds of things that make a young person look wise for their age, able to handle responsibility like an old hand, and willing to do the dirty work necessary.