This story originally aired on 12/17/11, on WABE-FM, Atlanta.

By Barbara Dougherty

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In a few months, most of my friends will be graduating from college - without me. I dropped out last fall, half way through my junior year. But I still hope to finish my degree someday. I’ve heard the statistics that people with college diplomas will earn more money than those who don’t have degrees.

I also know the unemployment rate isn't good for people who don't finish college. On top of all that, the thought of so many people my age soon entering the job market, competing with me, is intimidating. But my mother has helped me calm my feelings of inadequacy. She always reminds me that I have been successful at getting jobs: from busing tables to managing a frozen yogurt shop.

And now, I have a totally awesome position at a successful startup business - making all natural bath and body products by hand! I sell them at weekend festivals and markets. It’s an intensely fun outlet for my creativity and I’m getting some really great retail experience.

Though I'm disappointed that I didn’t finish college, I’m proud of myself for effectively selling myself to employers in this tight market. When my friends begin looking for jobs next summer, I’ll be able to give them advice on resumes, impressing potential employers, and being a responsible employee.

Previously on WABE:

As we look back on 2011, youth unemployment in European countries like Greece and Spain  has almost reached 50 percent, according to the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, in the United States, youth unemployment (ages 16 - 25) has decreased since January 2011 from 18.1 percent to 16.8 percent. The Reuters chart above shows European youth unemployment over the past 20 years demarcated by some economic triggers, including the Lehman Brothers collapse.

This event took a toll on the global economy, but since then, unemployment for young people in Greece and Spain has increased close to ten percent every year. Since the collapse in September 2008, youth unemployment in the U.S. has increased3 percent overall.

In Greece, you can start working at the age of 15 and in Spain at the age of 16, the same as in the U.S. These numbers represent those from the minimum working age up to 25.

Sayre Quevedo, Turnstyle News

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Alexander Monsanto has achieved a lot of firsts. He’s a first generation American, the first in his family to graduate high school, and the first to get a college degree. All eyes are on him to succeed, but it’s been ten months since he got his accounting degree from Florida Atlantic University, and still no job.

“There are times where I would question what I was doing," said Monsanto. "I studied accounting for four years. If it’s going to be this difficult to get a job, is this really the field I want to be in?”

The jobless rate in the San Francisco Bay Area is above the national average, and unemployment is especially high for recent college grads. Month after month, Alexander Monsanto emailed resumes and wrote cover letters with little success. One morning he says he responded to every Craigslist ad in the San Francisco Bay Area that mentioned accounting, and didn’t receive a single response.

“It turns into this viscous cycle where it’s not helping to stay home to look for a job. You kind of have to just get out of the house and go and network and put yourself out there. I needed to find something different,” said Monsanto. And that is exactly what he did.

The lanky 25 year-old is a regular commuter on a 7:45 AM bus from Berkeley to San Francisco, but unlike most on the bus, Monsanto is hunting for a job instead of heading to one. When he arrives in San Francisco, Monsanto pulls two straps over his shoulders and begins walking the streets of the financial district wearing a sandwich board with the words "Hire Me" spelled out on the front with big black sticky letters. The sign beats against his chest with every step.

It’s a moment that he says fills him with embarrassment every time, but the need for a job eclipses any insecurities. “Whatever it takes, that's what I keep telling myself,” said Monsanto. “I mean a lot of people probably think I’m crazy but I’m not.”

Assumptions about why unemployment is so high could be totally wrong, says a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Peter Cappelli, a professor at U. Penn’s Wharton School of Business. According to Manpower Group, 52% U.S. companies report difficulty filling jobs and 47% of companies blame job seekers’ lack of hard skills. But Cappelli’s editorial argues that the problem doesn’t lie squarely on the shoulders of un-skilled job seekers or a lacking educational system, but on inflexible employers and out of date hiring practices. Cappelli writes,  “Finding candidates to fit jobs is not like finding pistons to fit engines…Jobs can be organized in many different ways so that candidates who have very different credentials can do them successfully.”

Among his proposed solutions:

•         Companies should work with community colleges and educators to tailor coarse work to the specific needs of employers.
•         Bring back apprenticeships providing on the job training to new employees at a significant pay reduction/cost benefit to employers.
•         Promote from within and create pathways for advancement within companies reversing the trend of filling more than two-thirds of vacancies from outside job seekers.

By Tajah Jones and Kazia Berman

Unemployment has been generally stagnant over the past couple years, and young people face a harder market than most. Congresswoman Barbara Lee is tackling this issue in her congressional district; she secured $250,000 for the Digital Media Workforce Program launching out of Youth Radio in Oakland, CA next year.

The Digital Media Workforce Program will prepare 18-24 year olds for the digital media industry by teaching them skills in app development, journalism, and online and health media. The first class of young people will start in January 2012. On Monday, July 18th in Oakland, Youth Radio shut down the block bordering their Oakland headquarters to celebrate with their community of funders, students, and guests, and thank Representative Lee for her support.

People filled the streets outside of the building while a Youth Radio DJ played popular songs to keep an upbeat vibe. Asha Richardson, a project associate at Youth Radio spoke, as well as Youth Radio’s President Ellin O’Leary. Even though Representative Lee was tied up in Washington D.C. to vote on the debt ceiling issue, guests heard from Lee’s representative Ricci Graham, as well as Rodney Brooks, Chief of Staff to Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson.

In addition to supporting Youth Radio’s Digital Media Workforce program, Lee also helped craft a bill that provides 3 million dollars for workforce investment act job training programs and 1.7 billion dollars for job core training programs. Graham said on Lee’s behalf, “It’s clear that Youth Radio understands … the challenges youth face…You can bet the Congresswoman will provide her support to this program in the future.”

In today's market, youth are known as the "last-hired and first-fired." And without a job, the alternative of paying for college can be a financial downer. 

As the end of 2010 approaches, the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC) is set to expire. The AOTC offers tax relief to 12.5 million students and families to pay for their education, according to Young Invincibles.

With this impending deadline, Young Invincibles and other youth advocacy groups released a report called, “Economy Hammers Already Vulnerable Young Adults,” to draw the connection between the dire state of youth unemployment and the need to support legislation that makes education an accessible option for youth today. They hope to urge Congress to renew the legislation before 2011.

It is common for more people to enroll in school during a recession, but according to the report, the increase in numbers does not account for how many youth are unemployed. For example, some of the most recent data shows that 600,000 more 16 - 24 year-olds enrolled in school in 2009 than in 2007, but 1.8 million simply stopped looking for work, according to the report.

While the national unemployment rate was 9.6 percent in August 2010, the unemployment rate for 16 - 24 year-olds is 18 percent.  In addition, the report points out that the unemployment rate only counts those who have recently searched for a job.  Young people are more likely to get discouraged and stop job-hunting altogether, according to the report.  This means that a higher percentage of youth are actually unemployed, and actively removing themselves from the job market.

The report identifies a negative trend, “The rise in youth unemployment and fall in labor force threaten to grow the ranks of  ‘disconnected youth’ – a term used to describe young people who disengage from work and school for lengthy periods."

Young men and minorities fare worse in the job market compared to young women and whites, according to the report. Over 51 percent of young black men ages 16 to 19 who are looking for a job cannot find one.  

Young Invincibles also released a fact sheet with information on the education rate of the United States compared to other countries.  The U. S. is currently 12th in the world for the percentage of people with a college degree.  “To catch up, the U.S. would have to add 1 million college degrees per year through 2025, in addition to the 2 million degrees already awarded annually. Now is the time to invest in our young adults and the future of our country, and preserve this smart tax relief strategy."

Far outside the glamour of Paris lights, the French suburbs, called the “banlieues,” are struggling to get noticed. These racially divided areas are most often  referred to in terms of fighting crime and increasing law enforcement.  According to the New York Times, France has Europe's largest Muslim population and many are living in the suburbs. "The banlieues have long been considered potential incubators for religious extremism," according to the Times article.  The United States is taking action to reach out to these communities.

The banlieues are well-known for the violent youth riots that happened in 2005 and 2006.  In November, 2005, two French youths were killed by police. Over 2,900 youth rioters, consisting of mostly second generation immigrants living in housing projects, were arrested for burning schools, cars, and daycare centers, according to the Social Science Research Council.  Nicolas Sarkozy called a state of emergency and eventually the rioting ended after three weeks.  

In January of 2006, another violent youth riot broke out in the banlieues, this time consisting of mostly white youth, because of a proposed youth employment law that would lower wages and change workers’ rights. The SSRC referred to these events as evidence of a “growing crisis of social exclusion and racism affecting the French suburbs.”  

Since then, the banlieues have been stuck with the stigma of violence and racial tension.  Recently, there have been efforts by the United States as well as the French government to change the atmosphere. According to the New York Times, the United States Embassy in Paris is reaching out to local organizations, students, and politicians in an effort to change the culture of the banlieues as well as bolster the image of the United States in Muslim communities around the world after the events of September 11.

The United States began a visiting leadership program for French teenagers to come to the United States, and brought celebrities like Samuel L. Jackson over to speak to French students.  

Youth in Spain are being forced to do the unthinkable... move BACK in with their parents! Talk about your last resort. The global economic crisis is hitting Spanish youth hard, according to an article in BabelMed. The youngsters dealing with it are called the “paro generation,” or the generation of the unemployed.

“When things are going well, we call them 'paro generation.' Otherwise, the young Spaniards are described more bluntly as 'cannon fodders' of a system that has huddled up on itself,” says the article.

In terms of the state of the country, Spain’s national unemployment rate grew to 26.42 %, according to BabelMed. This is compared to the U.S.’s 9.5% unemployment rate in July 2010. These economic conditions are not only forcing young people in Spain to move back in with their parents, but also forcing them to take horrible jobs.

For example, many youth are tricked into “training contracts” that are terminated at a moment’s notice. The article reports, “There are indeed three youngsters out of four, aged from 16 to 19 that find themselves imprisoned in one of these ultra-precarious contracts... Deprived of guarantees, these young people are the first to fall into unemployment: out of the 1, 800, 000 jobs lost during these past two years of crisis, 1, 500, 000 were seasonal contracts.” As newly unemployed, these youth are soaking up unemployment benefits like sponges, sending the country into deeper recession.

Youth are being abused and exploited in the job market as well, causing them to lose faith in their system of government. "It is more and more difficult to talk of belief in the future even in the case of young Spaniards who have been brought up in an atmosphere of hope after the dark decades of Franquismo...80% of the interviewed youngsters feel 'little' or 'not at all interested' in politics,” said the article.

Scarier than that, young people in Spain are starting to pack their bags and ship out. This would mean fewer consumers to put money into the national economy. “Today, in Spain, youth are victims of a society that is not closed to a possible future if not a future founded on the most savage insecurity. For those who want to avoid living in this instability, the only way out is to pack up one’s belonging, 'largar adelante' (move on to something else) and leave Spain behind.”

Every month, the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes an update on the employment situation in the U.S. They just released their July Employment Situation report today.

Here’s the breakdown of the employment / unemployment situation for 16 - 19 year-olds today. The statistics are in three categories: Unemployment, Civilian Labor Force Participation, and the number of full-time employed youth.

Unemployment Rate [The number of 16-19 year-olds who are actively trying to get a job, but do not have one.]
* In July 2010, the unemployment rate for this age range is 26.1 percent.
* Since January 2010, the unemployment rate for youth has remained essentially unchanged, hovering around 25-26 percent.
* At the beginning of the recession (December of 2007), the unemployment rate was 16.9 percent. This means that the unemployment rate has increased by 10 percent since the beginning of the recession.
* Ten years ago in July 2000, the unemployment rate was 13.4 percent. Wow.

Attention: youth with empty pockets! You are not alone. While unemployment rages worldwide, youth are taking the brunt of it. When fewer jobs are available, adults are snatching up the retail, entry-level positions, leaving youth struggling to get interviews. According to the Wall Street Journal, in March, American workers between the ages of 16-24, had an unemployment rate of 18.8%, while the unemployment rate overall was only 9.7%.

Why does rising youth unemployment matter?
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the fear is that a whole generation of young people will get stuck in low-paying jobs, unable to rise up in the employment sector. If youth cannot find and keep their first job, it can affect their long-term happiness and well-being.

Different regions are coming up with their own ways of dealing with this issue. In April of this year, a new city jobs program was created for youth in Richmond, CA. The Richmond Youth Job Corps provides part-time work for residents between the ages of 17-24. The youth usually work 10 hours a week for $10/hr. Youth are placed with employers that range from the City Attorney’s Office to local television stations to carpentry and fire stations.