For Gen Z's job hopes, we're already in a recession

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Conor Sen / Bloomberg Opinion

Gen Z is right to have negative feelings about the economy. Not only were its oldest members entering the workforce as the pandemic struck, but those in their early to mid-20s are also now bearing the brunt of a labor market that’s largely been frozen in place for the past two years.

A “low hiring, low firing” job market works reasonably well for older workers, who have been in their roles for some time and are protected by the low-firing dynamic. But the low-hiring environment looks and feels like a recession to those just entering the workforce. What they urgently need is a meaningful pickup in hiring, something that doesn’t appear to be on the immediate horizon.

An age-based comparison of unemployment rates shows how much harsher this economy has felt for young workers since the labor market started cooling off. The jobless rate for the 20-24 age group has risen by 2.8 percentage points to 8.3 percent since a recent low in April 2023. That’s 7 times the deterioration experienced by prime-age workers between the ages of 25 and 54, who saw unemployment rise to 3.5 percent from 3.1 percent.

Notably, over the past 60 years, the U.S. economy has been in a recession every other time the unemployment rate for the 20-24 cohort has risen by this much over a two-year period. But in a recession, the Federal Reserve aggressively lowers interest rates to spark growth and hiring. That’s not the case now. Solid real gross domestic product growth in 2024 and too-high inflation have reined in the Fed, which does not see the labor market as needing immediate support.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-for-gen-zs-job-hopes-were-already-in-a-recession/