Unemployment among millennials is down 0.6 percent from the previous quarter, according to a recently released report from national non-partisan youth advocacy organization, Generation Opportunity.
The May 2015 data, specific to 18- to 29-year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 13.6 percent.
The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.791 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.
The effective unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans is 19.2 percent; the unemployment rate is 16.5 percent; 13.9 percent for hispanics; and 11.6 percent for women.
“Young people do have some reason to be optimistic about their futures as they continue to see economic conditions improve for our generation this year. May’s jobs report shows a 13.6 percent youth unemployment rate, down 0.6 percent from where we started at the beginning of 2015,” said Generation Opportunity director of policy engagement Luke Kenworthy. “While we’re encouraged, we also know there are still far too many obstacles in place preventing our generation from exercising our entrepreneurial muscles and creating jobs for ourselves.”
