Fewer young adults are working full time now than in recent years, according to a new Gallup poll.
In addition, the survey shows the percentage of college-educated Americans with full-time jobs has been declining.
"That is, there appears to be a growing crisis involving a lack of full-time work facing all younger Americans right now, regardless of their education level," states Gallup Chief Economist Dennis Jacobe.
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Specifically, 43.6 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 worked full time for an employer in June, compared with 47 percent in June 2012, 45.8 percent in June 2011 and 46.3 percent in June 2010.
The payroll to population employment rate has been essentially unchanged over the last year, suggesting that the availability of full-time jobs has barely been able to keep up with overall population growth, according to Gallup.
"The lack of new hiring over the past several years given a recovering economy seems to have disproportionately reduced younger Americans' ability to obtain full-time jobs," says Jacobe. "On the other hand, Americans aged 30 to 49 this June were, at 61.4 percent, about as likely to have a full-time job as they were in June of each of the prior three years."
Having a college degree certainly helps.
Young workers with at least a college degree are nearly twice as likely (65.4 percent) to have a full-time job than are those without a degree (38.6 percent).
Still, fewer young adults with a college degree now hold a full-time job than did in June 2012 (68.9 percent) and in June 2010 (67.9 percent). Similarly, fewer young Americans without a college degree have a full-time job than did in June of the previous three years.
Tamara Draut, vice president of policy and research at Demos, called unemployment of youths without college degrees "a silent crisis facing our nation."
The unemployment rate for 18 to 24 year olds with a Bachelor’s degree was 7.7 percent, compared with 19.7 percent for those with a high school diploma, according to Demos, a public policy organization. More than 5.6 million 18 to 34 year olds are actively seeking employment, and an additional 4.7 million are underemployed, working part time or marginalized from the labor market altogether.
If job growth continues at 2012 levels, it will be another 10 years before the country recovers to full employment. Even then, workers under 25 will face unemployment rates twice the national average.
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