26% Overall, 26 percent of American teenagers aged 16 to 19 had jobs in late 2009, said the report, which was based on U.S. Census Bureau data. That figure is a record low since statistics began being kept in 1948.
Published 21:24, January the 26th, 2010
The generation of the underemployed
The recession has taken a particularly heavy toll on young Americans, with a record one out of five black men aged 20 to 24 neither working nor in school, according to research released yesterday.
Teenagers have found it significantly harder to get jobs since the recession began in late 2007, with black youths and young people from low-income families faring the worst.
Joblessness was particularly rife among high school dropouts aged 16 to 24 who were neither in school nor holding jobs, the report said. In one example, only 13 percent of low-income black teenagers in Illinois held jobs in 2008 compared with 48 percent of more affluent white, non-Hispanic teens.