Youth Unemployment Rate in the USA

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course
Date
Youth Unemployment Rate in the USA
Joblessness is one of the primary problems affecting young people in the United States of America (USA). Despite many parents taking their children to schools, it is obvious that not all these individuals are absorbed by the job market upon graduating. Specifically, many graduates spend more time searching for jobs that are either not available or employers are seeking to hire highly experienced people. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the USA Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicated that the unemployment rate among young people in the USA was plummeting gradually. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this issue, making it more difficult for the youths to get jobs. Some businesses have shut down their operations, and others have retrenched their workforce. In that case, a significant percentage of young people have lost their jobs and those who are graduating find it hard to secure employment. The high unemployment rate among youths is a significant problem that affects the career of many young people in the USA.
The article “Explaining the Decline in the U.S. Employment-to-Population Ratio: A Review of the Evidence” by Katharine Abraham and Melissa Kearney shows that the rate of employment among young and prime-age adults in the USA has been decreasing gradually. In other words, the unemployment rate has been rising among the youths in the USA. The demographic that is significantly affected by this issue is the less-educated males (Abraham and Kearney 585). In particular, various factors have contributed to the rising rate of unemployment among young people in the USA. First, the increase in the importation of affordable electronic products from China has made it hard for technology companies to retain their competitive advantage, hence not offering numerous employment opportunities. As such, these firms are not hiring more people the way they used to do about five decades ago. Second, some large technology corporations, such as Apple Inc., are outsourcing jobs to China, hence denying young Americans career opportunities. Third, the advancement of technology has contributed to the workforce retrenchment done by many companies when they implement electronic systems to manage daily operations and use robots (Abraham and Kearney 598). Machines are gradually replacing humans in the job market, which contributes to the rise in the youth unemployment rate. Other factors causing the rate of unemployment among young people to rise in the USA are the increase in value for human capital and individuals with prison records.
Abraham and Kearney assert that the rate of employment for males between 25 and 54 years started to decrease in the 1970s. When it comes to females in the same age group, their employment rate began to increase in the 1990s (Abraham and Kearney 587). However, the employment trend for these two demographics changed in the early 2000s. From 1999-2018, the employment-to-population ratio decreased from 64.3% to 60.4%. In other words, the unemployment rate rose for both genders, but it was steeper for males (5.3%) than for females (2.5%) (Abraham and Kearney 587). From 2007 to 2009, during the economic recession in the USA, the employment-to-population ratio decreased sharply. The rate of employment among young individuals aged from 16-24 years decreased from 59% to 50.5% from 1999 to 2018, respectively. Notably, the unemployment rate for young men increased by 10.4% and that of women by 6.6% (Abraham and Kearney 587). As discussed earlier, technology has significantly contributed to the rise in the rate of unemployment among the youths in the USA. In my opinion, with the rapid advancement in technology and the urge by many companies to implement electronic devices and robots, there is a high likelihood that the unemployment rate among young people in the USA will continue to rise if proper measures are not implemented to reverse this trend.
Axelrad et al. (2018) depict that unemployment begins when young individuals are eligible and willing to work, but they cannot secure jobs. In 2011, the International Labor Office (ILO) reported that the youths encounter more challenges when searching for their first jobs (Axelrad et al. 1). Besides, during this time, these young people do not have the experience, which is the opposite of what many companies are looking for since they advertise that vacant positions must be filled by highly experienced candidates. The sharp rise in youth underemployment and unemployment is deep-rooted in numerous structural obstacles that hinder many youngsters from successful school-to-work transition (Axelrad et al. 1). The education institutions instil young people with knowledge, but they fail to show them how to apply the skills obtained in real life. As a result, when these individuals graduate, they do not understand how they can engage in activities to benefit themselves financially. Their mindset is to get a well-paying job, which is something challenging in the contemporary job market. Overall, when the first few job attempts fail, many young people become discouraged and demotivated, making some of them turn into criminal activities.
The youth unemployment problem has been a significant problem in multiple industries in the USA for the last three decades. The school-to-work transition is a complex process, particularly during this turbulent period of the coronavirus pandemic. Moreover, many first jobs are short-lived and unstable. The rate of youth unemployment is greater than that of adults (Axelrad et al. 2). In most cases, adults have gained more experience by working in various jobs or sectors for many years. For this reason, they know what is best for themselves and have a higher likelihood of being hired when they apply for jobs than young people. In my perspective, many young individuals do not keep their first jobs since they do not meet their expectations. For example, the majority of them want high-paying jobs so that they can repay their student loans and start new lives. However, they only get poorly paying jobs that do not provide them with career advancement opportunities, which explains ...