By Craig Torres, Catarina Saraiva and Gufeng Ren
America’s youngest workers started the year with a rare opportunity to slingshot their careers in the hottest job market in decades.
They’ll end 2020 facing some of the nation’s bleakest employment prospects and the most volatile job market ever for recent college graduates.
The unemployment rate for young people age 20 to 24 was 12.5% in September, the highest among adults. Joblessness for them peaked at nearly 26% at the height of the pandemic in April — quadruple the level two months earlier — a bigger jump than in any previous recession back to the 1940.
Although the overall U.S. labor market is gradually improving, it remains far below its pre-pandemic health. Jobless claims fell to 787,000 in the week ended Oct. 17 at the same time that the number of Americans on extended unemployment benefits rose, according to Labor Department data.
Economists say the longer that young people are forced to delay their careers, the worse their prospects…
