AUGUSTA, Maine — The good news: A higher percentage of teenagers and adults in Maine have jobs than the national average, which according to a leading state economist is due to Maine’s widest-in-the-country swing between warm-weather and cold-weather jobs.
The bad news: Nationally, the percentage of young people working is at its lowest point since World War II.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s new Kids Count Youth and Work Report found that in 2011, some 82,000 Mainers aged 16 to 24 reported having a job. About 39 percent of Mainers 16-19 were employed compared to 64 percent aged 20-24. In that respect, young people here fared well against the national averages of 26 percent and 61 percent, respectively.
Within the data are both bad news and silver linings. While an increasing number of young adults are absent from the workforce because they are in school, more are simply watching their job opportunities be filled by adults.
Glenn Mills, chief economist for the Maine Center for Workforce Research, attributed Maine’s favorable standing in this category to spikes in the number of jobs available during the summer, which are higher than any other state in the nation.
“Our seasonal swing is more than double what it is in the nation,” said Mills. “In the summer there’s more opportunity for kids because of the seasonal nature of our economy. There are only a couple of other states that could possibly have swings of the same magnitude.”
However, Mills said that doesn’t immunize teens and young adults from a downward trend in the workforce that is happening across the United States. He said the decline in Maine has been especially prevalent in the past decade. Part of it is due to higher percentages of young adults continuing their education. Nationally, school enrollment rates for teens 16-19 years old rose from 79 percent in 2000 to 85 percent in 2011. In the 20-24 category, the percentage jumped from 31 to 38 percent.
“People are realizing now that it’s much harder to make a middle-class living without a college education,” said Mills, though he added that most of the decline is due to older adults who are forced to work jobs formerly filled by younger people because of the economy.
“Many employers prefer someone who has shown a history of work ethic,” said Mills.
Several states are worse off than Maine, indicates the Kids Count survey. In Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and New York, the percentage of employed 20- to 24-year-olds stood at between 51 and 56 percent. At the upper end of the spectrum, nine states had more than 70 percent of people in that age group working, including New Hampshire at 72 percent.
Mills and the Kids Count report said the overall downward trend is troubling because poor employment for young people often becomes a lifelong struggle.
“Youth who miss out on an early work experience are more likely to endure later unemployment and less likely to achieve higher levels of career attainment,” reads the report.
“Everyone needs opportunities in their teen years and young adulthood to experience work and attain the job-readiness skills needed for long-term success. Those shut out of the labor market for considerable periods, especially in the early stages of their careers, have markedly reduced prospects for later connections to jobs.”
The long-term impact on society is severe. One study cited in the report estimated that every 16-year-old who is out of work and out of school will cost taxpayers some $260,000 during his or her lifetime. In the entire 16- to 24-year-old population as of 2011, that could cost society more than $1.5 trillion, according to the report.
The report suggested a range of more robust education and career-readiness programs, including those designed to re-engage high school dropouts in their educations, could improve the numbers.
“We must transform our response to meet the needs of young people,” states the report. “A more flexible, focused and nimble approach is required now. More than ever, our efforts must dovetail with the needs of employers who must respond to the emerging economy with the best-prepared talent possible.”
My son graduated high school in 2011 and has never had a job but certainly not for lack of trying. He is in college now but has plenty of available times he could work but still can’t even get a call back from McDonald’s. Very frustrating!
With the Liberals Taking charge of the Maine house and senate it will go the other way real soon.
Actually Maine has been steadily losing ground relative to the other states in employment, average pay and also in the youth employment rates since LePage took office.
This is a trend all over the country, stop blaming everything on Gov LePage. We have become a country of the underemployed, even if you have one of these crappy low paying jobs you are not going to get many hours. Why don’t you blame it on the one who should be blamed, Bill Clinton and his NAFTA nonsense.
No, the trend for the country is faster job creation and wage increases than in Maine … at least since LePage took office.
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Read what I wrote again. It concerns the rankings for Maine compared to the other states which, by definition, takes into account national trends.
Any fool can tell you that there are no jobs in Maine. If these young adults are serious about finding work, then they will have to leave the state.
My first job was cleaning chicken barns. It was 1972 and I was 12 years old. It paid $1.65 an hour. They were broiler barns and we used to clean them out every 13 weeks. I can remember working until one or two in the morning and then getting up to go to school. The nastiest job on the planet. It taught me a good lesson though. I never got frustrated with any other job I had. I could always say, ” hey, it beats cleaning chicken barns.”
Democrats have done everthimg possible to kill the job market for ypumg people, starting with raising the minimum wage and flooding the market with illegals