College graduates enter job market that has over 38 million Americans out of work
Young Americans are being met with a bleak job market and record unemployment amid the COVID-19 pandemic; Christina Coleman reports on what new graduates are facing.
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The United Nations labor agency reported Wednesday that more than one in six young workers globally have stopped working during the coronavirus pandemic, warning that long-term fallout could lead to a “lock-down generation” if steps aren’t taken to ease the crisis.
The International Labor Organization, in a new look at the impact of the pandemic on jobs, says that work hours equivalent to 305 million full-time jobs have been lost due to the COVID-19 crisis. Many young workers face economic hardship and despair about the future.
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Chris Howell told Fox News he’s been running a successful health and wellness consulting agency for the past three years. He set up this week a ‘Business & Fitness’ webinar with his brother “our CPA and an accountant to many others in the fitness industry.” (Chris Howell)
Chris Howell, 29, is one young man taking matters into his own hands: “Financial literacy in the United States is an issue, and the pandemic has highlighted a number of associated problems specifically in the fitness industry. Coaches, trainers, studio & gym owners are all struggling in different ways through COVID-19 and for most the common denominator are their personal finances.”
He told Fox News he’s been running a successful health and wellness consulting agency for the past three years. He set up a Business and Fitness webinar this Thursday with his brother a "CPA and an accountant to many others in the fitness industry.” It'll include organizing accounts, tax tips, marketing, financial planning, and sales.
Howell added: “I called my brother, Alex, to organize a Zoom webinar focused on simple techniques to organize your business, basic accounting, tax advantages, helpful softwares and more. Shannon, my sister, the agency’s graphic designer, a true family affair, made the graphics and we were off.”
ILO Director-General Guy Ryder warned of the “danger” that young workers aged 15 to 28 in particular could face, from inability to get proper training or gain access to jobs that could extend well beyond the pandemic and last far into their working careers.
In a survey, ILO and its partners found that over one in six of such young workers were no longer working during the pandemic, many with their workplaces shuttered or their usual clienteles stuck at home. Young people were already in a precarious position relative to other age categories, with work rates still below those before the 2008 economic crisis even before the pandemic hit.
“They have been basically ejected from their jobs,” Ryder said, referring to those who have stopped working. “There is a danger of long-term exclusion. The scarring of young people who are excluded from the labor market early in their careers is well attested by the literature.”
“So I don’t think it is giving way to hyperbole to talk about the danger of a lock-down generation,” Ryder said, noting the psychological distress that can quickly affect younger workers who worry about the future of their budding work lives.
Todd Siddons is an entrepreneur working remotely who recently moved to Arizona. His ideology reflects many young Americans whose lives had to be transformed in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse.
He even recommended to go to where the money is: invest in where most weren’t paying attention before the quarantine: “All at-home gym equipment, bands, weights, machines, etc. Communication companies like Zoom, of course. Paper towels, toilet paper, etc. Cleaning products. Non-perishable food. So many more!”
Todd Gareiss, a marketing expert, uses the same strategies and techniques used by leading advertising and PR firms for branding job-seekers in the new market: “Jobs will come back. Count on it. Be ready for it! Position yourself ahead of the competition. This is the perfect time to enhance your skill sets and resume. Get out there and learn MS Excel / Google Sheets, Project Management, SalesForce, anything in the Adobe lineup, etc. Become an advanced user of any software or platform used in your field. Some great places to start are Udemy, Corsaira, YouTube and so on. Massive amounts of training material on virtually any skill you want to improve all over the web.”
He runs CareerClout.com and told Fox News his advice for young people: “It's game day, what are you doing to beat out the other applicants? Consider hiring a resume expert. Expand your skillset. Advance towards your goal of finding new employment every single day. Get busy, make your own luck, never retreat, never sit still. You have more control than you think.”
ILO says governments can help with measures like increasing state support for unemployed workers, taking steps to guarantee jobs and training, and rolling out testing and tracing measures that boost workplace safety and help workers and consumers get back out more quickly.
The Middle East is just one of the world’s many regions struggling to cope with the COVID-19 outbreak. After first peaking in China, where it began, then Europe, now it’s the Americas that is seen as the main epicenter.
But it’s a global issue.
Of those still working, nearly one in four -- or 23 percent -- have seen their working hours reduced, the ILO said, pointing to a “triple shock” faced by young workers: destruction of their work, disruption to their training and education, and obstacles moving in the work force or entering it in the first place.
Of the 178 million young workers employed around the world, more than 40 percent were in “hard hit sectors when the crisis began,” such as food services and hospitality industries, the ILO said. More than three-fourths are in “informal” jobs, including 94 percent of young workers in Africa alone.
“We run the risk of creating a situation — in this sort of snapshot of pandemic — which will have lasting effects,” Ryder told a virtual news conference from the ILO headquarters. “A lot of young people are simply going to be left behind in big numbers.
“And the danger is — and again, this is the lesson of past experience — that this initial shock to young people will last a decade or longer than a decade,” Ryder said. “It will affect the trajectory of working people, young working people, throughout their working lives.”
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Howell is ready for the future.
He told Fox News: “I think it’s an interesting dilemma, of course the feeling of being a pariah to your company or employer, devalued, loss of purpose. ... That’s a tough pill to swallow. However, re-acquiring talent will be a challenge for most companies. The current labor market is at an all time high, talent considered, there’s discounts at the C suite level down to a front desk clerk. The ball lies in the court of the brands and companies that have the capital to hire this talent and be able to make strategic acquisitions in the COVID-19 labor market.”
He added: “With ‘work from home’ becoming more viable, and forcing companies to question headcount and overall costs. In some cases, post COVID, people won’t have a job to come back to. On a positive note, I know plenty of people that have found the entrepreneurial spirit out of necessity. The human spirit is incredible resilient.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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