From Stark
A new report from the state’s Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board says the sick economy is infecting Washington’s young people, with a rising number of young adults who have finished school but have never been able to find a job.
The Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board describes itself as is a partnership of business, labor and government, dedicated to helping Washington residents obtain and succeed in family-wage jobs, while meeting employers’ needs for skilled workers. Its report was commissioned by the State Legislature.
A summary of the report, culled from the board’s press release:
- The recession-battered job market has left many Washington young adults, 18-24, unable to land their first job. Over 75,000 young adults are neither attending school nor working.
- Early in 2010, when Washington’s unemployment rate was 10 percent for adults 25 to 64 years of age, the rate for young adults was more than 22 percent, the report states. Studies show young people who enter the labor market in a recession are at risk of not moving forward in their chosen careers, lowering their lifetime earnings and delaying milestones, such as buying a home, getting married and having children.
- The “disconnected” (not working, not attending school) population represents over 13 percent of the state’s young adult population.
- The greatest portion of this group (80 percent), have education that stops at high school.
- Young men are more likely than young women to be out of work and out of school.
The report highlights the importance of providing work experience through volunteer and community service opportunities, noting “work does not have to be paid to be valuable for youth.”
“Even during good times, young people struggle with significantly higher unemployment rates that can be double that of other workers,” said Workforce Board Executive Director Eleni Papadakis. “The recent recession has only widened that gap, making it that much more difficult for youth to get the type of experience that builds positive work habits and focuses them on career planning.”
It seems that America’s political discourse has agreed- left, right, center included -not to mention or to consider the long-range effects of America’s no longer making stuff. During just the first decade of the 21st century, 30% of American manufacturing jobs vanished. Since these are the best jobs for a ladder into the middle class, losing them has very unpleasant consequences if you’re an average person, not a prince of high finance.
America still makes paint and chemicals, but very little machined or metallurgical products, and no electronics or optics. This death of manufacturing represents a quick road to poverty for most Americans, though this idea has not been much discussed since the 1992 presidential election (remember the guy with big ears?).
Without primary wealth creation, the economy will more and more become a mad scramble for what economists call “rents”. The winners will be few but fabulously favored; the losers will be many.
Abe Jacobson
Bellingham
A good point Abe. How many politicians repeat jobs, jobs, jobs as their campaign mantra but never so much as allude to the devastating impact of all those “FREE” trade agreements they are all too happy to support? They waggle fingers back and forth at each other all the while pocketing the payoffs from fat corporate donors that move jobs overseas. Then they give them tax breaks with the dollars left from the few of us who can still pay taxes.
I know tons of bright kids who can’t find work or work 2 and 3 menial jobs just to pay their rent. College? Some have done that too only to graduate with a full plate of debt and no job in sight. Up on the hill they have the gall to yammer on and on about the happy-go-lucky, kum-ba-ya, feel-good crisis of the moment: who will sit with who.
Corporate profits are up. Wall Street is optimistic and the rest of us are “free” to struggle with rising rents, failing schools, unemployment, foreclosure, hunger, despair. The “American Dream” is now only available to corporations. Bailed out and saved from disaster by the hapless American taxpayer, again and again.
You can see the how these priorities have played out – in the unemployment lines and food banks, under bridges and in crowded substandard apartments, wasting time or begging on street corners, the numbers of lost Americans swell. Too bad none of us are too big to fail.
Laying off teachers, laying off workers, outsourcing to lower paid employees and business processes. That’s the real story. We are not that far away from 40% employment like Egypt. In fact, Egypt may be in better shape than we are concidering the lobbying and political forces in this country.
The consensus at the Economic Forum in Davos this year was that U.S. wages will continue to experience considerable downward pressure from global competition for jobs.
As for the loss of manufacturing jobs, many U.S. factories have moved just south of the Mexico border, where they are called maquiladora or maquila factories. These manufacturing operations greatly increased as a result of NAFTA, and they enjoy special tariff, duty, and tax benefits. They also operate under very lax environmental regulations, which has led to numerous problems, including the deliberate dumping of toxic wastes.
Approximately 600 maquiladoras employ about 1.3 million people, mostly young women, who work long hours for less than subsistence wages. The maximum possible wage is about USD $2.30, but the turnover rate in these factories is so high that few are paid the top wage. The average starting wage is around 110 pesos a day. Try living on that sometime.
For more about what life is like just south of the border, see the following interview with journalist and author Charles Bowden:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/14/charles_bowden_murder_city_ciudad_jurez
For more information about maquiladoras, see the Wikipedia entry here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora
To learn more about the global economy, you can watch videos from Davos here:
http://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2011?idvideo=2619
How will high schoolers get employed? Our new business license came this year with a new phrase printed on it. “Not licensed to employ youth.” That’s never been on there before. What does it mean? Whom do I call? If you can’t employ youngsters at an entry level age because they are being regulated out of doing any kind of work, this problem isn’t going away.
That’s a puzzler, Cammie. Does it define “Youth?” I’m guessing that means younger kids, not 19-year-olds. Let me see what I can find out.
Cammie: Here’s a link to the Department of Labor and Industries site that lists work activities prohbited for workers under 18 and under 16. Would this explain the language on your license?
http://www.lni.wa.gov/WorkplaceRights/TeenWorkers/Prohibited/default.asp
The younger the worker the better the attitude in my experience. Once they’ve had a few jobs they become jaded.
Can’t work, can’t get experience. We make it cost prohibitive for them to become better educated in our ifinitessimal wisdom, so what are they to do? Learn bad english and move to Mombai?
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