The job market recovery is looking better for 2023 and 2024.
The best evidence for the optimistic outlook is coming from a surprising place: teenagers trib.al/UhfE1Ke
Teenagers are less affected by the factors holding back labor supply than any other demographic.
🚫They weren't eligible for economic impact payments while living at home
🚫They'd be ineligible for unemployment insurance as full-time students twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
A full employment recovery to pre-pandemic levels is going to take longer than we thought.
But booming employment trends among teenagers suggests that strong demand for workers should flow through into higher levels of labor-force participation teenagers trib.al/UhfE1Ke
Teens are:
🚫Unlikely to be parents squeezed out of the labor force by closed schools
✅Likely to be drawn to the types of jobs that employers are desperate to fill right now trib.al/UhfE1Ke
Teenagers lack the greater levels of education and experience that allow older workers to take on roles, such as corporate executives or home health aides.
They are more likely to seek lower-paid service jobs on a part-time basis than any other age group trib.al/UhfE1Ke
In May, the jobless rate for teenagers was lower than the rate for workers aged 20 to 24 for the first time in history.
Even slightly older workers are still holding off on taking jobs in a way that teens aren't trib.al/UhfE1Ke
The surge in teen employment is showing up in other measures of labor-force participation:
📈The employment-to-population ratio for teenagers hit a 13-year high in May
📈Teen labor-force participation remains at higher levels than it was in the 2010s trib.al/UhfE1Ke
Right now we're seeing a relatively easy solution to increasing labor-force participation in lower-paid service industry jobs: Pay more and be willing to hire teenagers.
The key is sustaining robust labor demand trib.al/UhfE1Ke
Employment dynamics have improved for teenagers after a generation of declines.
There's no reason we shouldn't see progress for other groups of workers as pandemic-related labor-supply constraints abate over the coming months trib.al/UhfE1Ke
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