The job market is already quite a challenge in an economy where the overall unemployment rate stands at 8.1 percent (with African Americans overall at a rate of 14.1 percent). For youth, the challenge gets a bit stickier. Generation Opportunity, a youth advocacy organization, recently released the non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) unemployment data for millennials, which included jobless numbers for youth ages 18-29, with the jobless rate at 12.7 percent. Specifically, African Americans in that age group have a jobless rate at 22.3 percent. The rate for young Hispanics was 14 percent.
The organization also reports that “the declining labor participation rate has created an additional 1.715 million young adults that are not counted as ‘unemployed’ by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.”
Though those numbers seem bleak, there are viable options for young professionals. Check out a few resources that will help spark your career success:
Real-Life Career Tips from Recent Graduates
How to Beef Up Your Skills for Job-Seeking Success