Unemployment among young people is the societal panic of late, and the numbers can prove it.
A Time magazine story from October cited data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) noting a quarter of the 20-to-34-year-old population as unemployed ― which amounts to about 14 million Americans. The BLS also reported over the summer that, while up considerably from a year prior, youth unemployment still hovered at around 10 percent.
With those numbers in mind, the burning question is, simply, “Why?”
I want to answer this question as best I can, but since I’m only one person, my viewpoint is limited.
In writing this, I wound up reaching out to about 15 people with two simple questions: “Why do you work?” (or, alternatively, “Why don’t you work?”) and “Why do you think other young people aren’t working?”
The respondents range in age (for the purposes of this writing, “young people” are anyone ages 22 to 32), race, and employment status. All have spent some time in the Greater Boston area, though not all of them live here now. Some come from means, and some don’t.
Despite the relative diversity of the individuals surveyed, the responses were nearly identical. Ultimately, through my little experiment I was able to boil down the solution to the billion-dollar question to four main factors.
Compiled below, I’m referring to these factors as the Terms of Unemployment:
- Flipping burgers is not a career
A good friend of mine was nervous before graduating art school, and decided to go see her advisor for some career advice. Set to graduate in May, she wanted to know how she should approach a hunt for internships.
“He told me to work at McDonald’s,” she said. “Well, he didn’t say it that bluntly. But he told me that ‘Even a job flipping burgers shows people that you’re dedicated.'”
Let’s look at the parable of the burger-flipper for a second. It seems like the fry cook is always held over the heads of middle-class children to get them to study harder and dream bigger. “You can be whatever you want to be if you try hard enough” was the carrot and “You don’t want to be flipping burgers for the rest of your life” was the stick.
In reality, burger flipping is a totally respectable gig, but it’s a gig nonetheless. If one were to try to make a career out of the fast-food industry ― becoming a manager or a franchise owner ― flipping burgers would be a good place to start. But my art-school friend doesn’t want to own a McDonald’s. She wants to do what she went to school for.
Some of the folks I spoke to were already hard at work at their dream jobs, with one person even saying he was finally doing the thing he dreamed of as a kid. At any other point in American history, if someone like that was to turn around and take a job at Denny’s, it could raise some red flags.
But rarely at any other point in American history has the fast-food industry been hurting for workers. Other industries? Not so much.
“When I think of the labor shortage, I sort of only think of labor shortage when it comes to (bad) jobs, retail and service,” said a former barista now in grad school for computer science. “I don’t think biotech companies or big tech is hurting too much.”
Just because there’s a burger flipper shortage doesn’t mean everyone who’s currently jobless has to sign up to be one. There are other options.
“When I was unemployed, the options became quite clear ― stay in a jobless, anxious, stunned state; accept a job I don’t want for the income; or wait it out,” said a friend who, up until recently, had been living out of her van while driving across the country. “Ultimately I did a little of each. In short, being picky about the job I accepted was one of the best decisions I made.”
- Our eyes have been opened
There are plenty of reasons to take the fry-cook gig as well. Not everyone’s career trajectory is linear, and plenty simply need a paycheck.
But one thing nearly everybody mentioned was a sort of mass awakening about entry-level work brought about by the pandemic.
“Everyone was given time to think about where they are in life at this moment,” one said. “It gave a pause and allowed people not to feel stuck doing jobs they don’t want to do.”
According to the people surveyed, a changed perspective led to an irrevocable loss of trust in their employers.
“I think a lot of young people just feel like they’re supposed to go back to work like nothing happened,” said another. “A mountain of human epidemics and systemic bubbles have been at the forefront of our attention these past few years and I think being told to go back to work feels a bit backwards in that way.”
Ultimately, this awareness has been compounded. Being aware of how little one likes one’s job can often lead to revelations that go beyond the job itself and, instead, can open a young person’s eyes to the service industry as a whole.
“People no longer want to risk their lives and their well-being for a few hundred bucks a week,” said a former grocery-store worker who is using his pandemic pause to take programming classes.
Another friend who has dabbled in living on the road echoed the high stakes involved, saying, “Different from previous generations, we know our value and the value of our mental health and know we deserve to be treated better than most places are willing to treat us.”
Mental-health fluency is indeed something at which young people are the vanguard. However, based on the responses I received, it’s clear that our self-awareness also corresponds to an understanding of what our labor is worth.
“Employers that are having trouble finding workers may be making job offers that were totally fine in 2019 but are, more likely than not, uncompetitive in 2021,” someone said.
A more outspoken individual said this: “I don’t think there is a worker shortage; I think there is an excess of exploitation.”
- Suffer for what?
Is it simply the pandemic that made us more aware? In order for so many young people to feel the same way, something may have predispositioned us. I think it might have been our parents.
Considering that our moms and dads are mostly Baby Boomers and Generation X-ers, we’re all aware that Americans used to be able to support themselves and others by working at entry level. And in-state colleges were free to attend. And gas was under a dollar a gallon. And a stack of pancakes cost 75 cents.
Obviously, some things have changed.
So maybe we’re sick of being told that flipping burgers can make our dreams come true when we know we’d need three additional burger-flipping jobs to afford an apartment. There’s a growing gulf between what we’re asked to do and what it affords us materially and, once you’re aware of that, you might start to ask “Why bother?”
“The whole reason I went to grad school is because I wasn’t making ends meet as a lab tech, not to mention a barista,” said the ex-barista. “And when I was working in a cafe while studying, it was absolutely impacting my studies and my self esteem. At a certain point, it’s like, ‘For what?'”
Not everyone came to this realization happily; one person I spoke to actually wanted to work in the service industry, and left his position reluctantly at the onset of COVID.
“If (food-service jobs) were to be higher paying, with greater job security, a stable 30-40 hours a week, and employers cared more about worker safety, I would happily look for work in kitchens and food service, since cooking and hospitality is a passion of mine,” said a friend who decided to forego his initial career after losing his restaurant job in March 2020. “Entry-level, food-service jobs are not a viable long-term option for me.”
When the pandemic hit, it shifted our priorities as well as our awareness. Each time an employee caught the virus at work, pay was cut while hours extended, or masks weren’t provided, it made an unsustainable, entry-level job a little less important in the grand scheme.
- Nothing is permanent
What seems to be overlooked in the youth unemployment crisis is that we’re, well, young. None of us is planning on staying unemployed forever. Some people I spoke to tried to get in the mindset of the independently wealthy, but none saw themselves in that category.
“If a young person is getting by on unemployment or is independently well off through family, then I suppose I get why they wouldn’t feel the need to go back to work,” one said. “I don’t personally feel the same way, but I can understand the logic of it.”
In practice, the unemployed people I spoke to were taking time to gear up for the next phase of their lives, and nobody felt satisfied just sitting around all day.
“Five years of savings was enough to satisfy all of my short-term goals, and none of the long-term goals (home ownership, Jet Ski, etc.) were even possible with my salary,” said a friend who does contract work on weekends. “So I wanted to drop out to develop my skills and transition into the industry I actually wanted to work in.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of career changes from this point onward,” another added.
Looked at through this lens, it’s almost as if the changes brought on by the pandemic have empowered young people, rather than disenfranchising them. Goals have gotten bigger, rather than smaller.
Empowerment to live comfortably, to feel competent, and to contribute to society has always been the object of paid labor from the worker’s perspective, and that perspective should not get lost in the shuffle.
What’s changed is not the desire to work, but the way in which one goes about it ― and what one will accept.
“I want to continue the climb and see where this path takes me,” said a friend who sees his commitment to his career as a tribute to his immigrant parents. “I can rest, but I can’t stop.”
