It has been one week since I got home to Sacramento for the summer. In that time, I have turned in applications for nine different jobs. At an additional seven businesses, I have been told not to bother because there are no positions available, and there will be none in the foreseeable future.
For all of my effort, I have gotten one call back for an interview at a Nike outlet store. I was one of 27 people interviewed for five openings. I am an unemployed college student.
I take some comfort in knowing that I am not alone. The unemployment rate in the United States is 9.7 percent, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor. In California this number is 12.4 percent, making it the third worst state in the country for job seekers.
These unemployment statistics have whipped the media into a frenzy, and comparisons between the present economic climate and the Great Depression have become commonplace.
Judging by these numbers, the comparisons to the Great Depression might be a little overblown. After all, the national unemployment rate was estimated to be about 25 percent during the worst years of the 1930s. There is only one demographic that is in a truly comparable situation to the Depression era. Teenagers like myself are currently enduring, nationwide, an unemployment rate over 26 percent
The biggest reason for the incredibly high unemployment rate for those aged 16-19 is that first number, the 9.7 percent unemployment rate. As older, more experienced workers lose their jobs, they turn to lower paying positions usually held by teens.
My sole interview over the last two weeks was for a job at the local Nike outlet store. Essentially, I would be selling shoes and T-shirts at near-minimum wage for less than 20 hours a week. Although I go to an adidas-sponsored university, I considered myself a lifetime sports enthusiast and reasonably strong applicant for such a position.
Because so many people applied for the job we were interviewed in a panel style, three at a time. Once the interview began I was surprised to learn that sitting to my right was a former mortgage dealer who had lost his job in the housing bust, and to my left was a woman who had given up a career in the faltering financial sector before becoming a high school teacher. Both were in their mid to late 20s, had college degrees, ties to Nike, and were honestly stronger applicants than myself.
Getting upstaged by the former mortgage broker for a part-time job at the Nike outlet store is a reminder of the final, most brutal statistic of all: the teen unemployment rate in California, the statistic that most directly represents my struggle to find a job and the struggle of UCLA students like me. The unemployment rate for California teens is 34.2 percent. One in three people aged 16 to 19 are actively seeking work and failing to find it. You would have to stack the current recession on top of the Great Depression in order to create a similar crisis nationwide.
On each application I fill out, I am asked for information about my previous job experience. Clearly this is an important attribute to employers, but they need to make more of an effort to hire teens now or the next generation of workers will be lacking this experience.
I see some of my peers spending the summer working at unpaid internships, and though this does provide them with experience it is not a viable solution to the teen unemployment problem. Many UCLA students can’t afford to spend a summer working for free just to “gain experience” for a full-time job once they’re out of school. The cost of going to school has increased as students’ opportunities to pay for their educations have reached historic lows.
The problem of teen unemployment is a reminder that the current recession has the potential to retard the development of our entire generation as a workforce, thus crippling the economy for decades.
The best solution to teen unemployment is obviously recovery for the economy as a whole; the creation of new jobs for adults will mean less overqualified workers applying for traditionally teen jobs. Until then, policymakers in this country should be working with an added sense of urgency, because every teen unemployed this summer will be contributing a little bit less to the economy in the future.