Heidi Shierholz — Number of Missing Workers Jumps to All-Time High

Falling unemployment rate. Cheering. Falling unemployment rate AND falling participation rate? Bronx cheer.

After a few months of the labor force participation rate (LFPR) showing what was hopefully early signs of strength, it dropped back down to its low of the recovery in March. The biggest drops in labor force participation in March were among young workers; the LFPR of workers under age 25 dropped 1.3 percentage points, from 55.6 percent to 54.3 percent. (However, these series are erratic due to small sample sizes, and the April decline in the under-25 LFPR was simply a reversal of its jump up in March.) The biggest drop in LFPR in April was among men under the age of 20. To my knowledge, data on unemployment insurance exhaustions by age don’t exist, but it is unlikely that young workers are a big proportion of exhaustions. This means that the April drop in labor force participation is likely not being driven by the expiration of federal unemployment insurance benefits last December as some have suggested, but simply by the weak labor market.

There is currently an all-time-high of 6.2 million missing workers (potential workers who are neither working nor actively seeking work due to the weak labor market). Almost a quarter of them (1.4 million) are under age 25. The figure below shows that the unemployment rate for young workers would be 18.4 percent instead of 12.8 percent if the missing young workers were in the labor force looking for work and thus counted as unemployed.

Working Economics
Number of Missing Workers Jumps to All-Time High
Heidi Shierholz | Economist, Economic Policy Institute
(h/t Mark Thoma at Economist's View)

Tyler Durden — Millennials Devastated As American Dream Becomes Nightmare For Most

We love poking fun at Zero Hedge, but ZH gets this one right. Pretty shocking to read and pretty desperate if one is young and behind the eight ball.

Zero Hedge

Millennials Devastated As American Dream Becomes Nightmare For Most

Tyler Durden

Julia Berman — Youth Unemployment Is The Next Global Crisis

The next global financial crisis has already started, in the form of nearly 75 million unemployed young people around the world.

If this mass of jobless youth doesn't find work, the consequences will be dramatic, a group of politicians and economists at the Concordia Summit here Friday warned -- from increased violence in the Middle East to ever-higher rates of income inequality in the United States to increased political unrest in Europe.

"Youth unemployment is dramatic," said José María Aznar, the former prime minister of Spain, where the jobless rate for those aged 15 to 24 is 56 percent. "It's jeopardizing the opportunities for future prosperity and growth."

The youth unemployment rate hit 65 percent in Greece earlier this year and 39 percent in Egypt last year, when the country was still grappling with the fallout from the Arab Spring and just before a new bout of violent, political strife.

By comparison, unemployment for those aged 20 to 24 in the United States is low -- but still a whopping 36 percent.

This youth unemployment crisis is "a direct result" of the global economic downturn, political scientist and best-selling author Ian Bremmer said in an interview at the conference.

The Huffington Post
Youth Unemployment Is The Next Global Crisis
Julia Berman

Ralph Musgrave — European Commission tells the UK what do about youth unemployment.

That’s “European Commission” as in “we lot who have managed to create 50% youth unemployment in Greece, 50% in Spain and 36% in Portugal, so we obviously know what we’re talking about”. 

See: Council Recommendation on the United Kingdom’s 2013 national reform programme

The European Commission’s – er – “advice” then descends from the ridiculous to the totally ridiculous: it tries to tell the UK what do about it’s deficit. Here it follows the standard IMF / OECD / Pete Peterson / Bowles and Simpson / Rogoff and Reinhart line, namely that a country should have a PLAN for deficit reduction.
The whole notion of a PLAN for reducing the debt or deficit is nonsense because it fails to get a point made by Keynes: “Look after unemployment and the budget will look after itself”.

In other words, a monetarily sovereign government should pitch it’s deficit (or surplus) at a level that reduces unemployment as far as is possible without exacerbating inflation too much. If the private sector happens to be in a fit of irrational exuberance, government may well need to run a surplus in order to confiscate financial assets from the private sector and quieten things down. Conversely, if the private sector is in subdued mood, government will need to run a deficit so as to boost demand and feed financial assets into private sector pockets.

And since it is impossible to predict what mood the private sector will be in in twelve months time (never mind three years time), it’s impossible to say what size deficit (or surplus) will be suitable in twelve months’ time or three year’s time.

European Commission tells the UK what do about youth unemployment.
Ralph Musgrave

Joshua Holland — How America's Retirement Crisis Is Crushing the Hopes of a Generation of Young People

...we're just at the beginning of this crisis, and with each cohort of Americans reaching retirement age, fewer will have pensions and more will have experienced the great middle-class squeeze than the cohort before it. So it will get worse before it gets better, but eventually our elites will have no choice but to finally recognize the severity of the crisis their neoliberal clap-trap has created.

AlterNet
How America's Retirement Crisis Is Crushing the Hopes of a Generation of Young People
Joshua Holland | Editor-at Large

Annalyn Kurtz — Getting into the military is getting tougher

The myth that the military is the employer of last resort debunked. There are now two dogs for only one bone.

In a typical week, about 10 applicants will walk into a recruiting center in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, hoping to enlist in the United States Army. Sergeant First Class Israel Herrera doesn't like to turn them away, but he often finds that six out of 10 simply don't measure up to military standards.

Just like private-sector employers, the military is seeking higher-skilled recruits these days....

Thanks to high youth unemployment and the drawdown from both Iraq and Afghanistan, Uncle Sam can afford to be a bit pickier....

It wasn't always this way. Just six years ago, during the Iraq war surge, the military had lower standards. Only about 86% of new recruits had high-school diplomas, and just 67% of recruits scored in the top 50th percentile on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Waivers excusing health issues and prior misconduct -- even felonies -- were not uncommon.
Those waivers were needed to hit enrollment targets. The Army fell short of its recruiting goal by about 7,000 people in 2005, but like the other military branches, it has had a surplus of recruits every year since then....

There are roughly two applicants for every slot the military is trying to fill.

CNN Money
Getting into the military is getting tougher
Annalyn Kurtz

Ozgur Orhangazi — The Global Unemployment Crisis

Truthout

The Global Unemployment Crisis
Ozgur Orhangazi | Associate Professor of Economics at Kadir Has University, Istanbul