September 23, 2011

AP says I'll Probably Be Unemployed, Living In My Parents' Basement

The Associated Press has an article on the toll the recession is taking on young adults.

To summarize: Way more of us are unemployed or under-employed, WAY more of us are choosing to live at home or stay close to home rather than moving out, and about 1 in 5 of us risk living in poverty. Young adults are more unemployed now than we've been since WWII. Quote:
"Their really high levels of underemployment and unemployment will haunt young people for at least another decade," [Economist Andrew] Sum said. Richard Freeman, an economist at Harvard University, added, "These people will be scarred, and they will be called the `lost generation' - in that their careers would not be the same way if we had avoided this economic disaster."
I really wish the AP had broken down those numbers a bit more - is the drop in employment in any way matched with an increase of young people in college, graduate school or trade school, for instance? But either way, the picture is kind of a grim one. My classmates and I are getting freaked out, so we'd better fix the economy soon. Get on that, grown-ups!

3 comments:

Foxie said...

The big problem with fixing the economy is those who need to be shoved out the door are the ones deciding who gets shoved. Not much chance those turkeys are going to vote for Christmas!

And don't worry. You may not have a career the way your grandfather did but lets be honest, with jobs the way they are at the moment, who wants one? You'll have a job, just not something you'll particularly care about. And that's fine, because the companies employing you will care less than nothing about you. It's a use and be used world!

Not fantastic news, I know, but it means you'll have plenty of time to live your life around your job instead of it consuming every second of your life the way a career does.

Foxie said...

Sorry, that's really depressing!

Any projection of the future is just drawing straight lines from a random point on a circle. Truth is we never know what the world will be like in ten or twenty years time. Assuming today's trends are going to continue unabated is a bit dumb.

There's hope for the future because we're going to make it :)

Unknown said...

Haha. I'm planning adventures for after college. Travel places, work on random political campaigns, write stuff, go to theological school. Maybe by the time I finish all that some interesting jobs will have opened up!