The September 11, 2015 Chicago Tribune has a small article stating the economy is up and “we’re making progress” on unemployment. We probably are at the macro level, but to truly understand our local market in Chicago, it requires a much deeper dive and look at the individual groups who are indeed getting jobs, and the skills to be job ready.
The following article from Martha Ross at The Brookings Institute, provides the true data behind the various employment opportunities for our youth, and how the digital divide is still related to education, diversity and getting job skills in STEM.
Microsoft Chicago is truly appreciative of our long term partnership with Brookings. For several years, Brookings has partnered with Microsoft on a national basis to research and analyze the impact of digital and STEM skills on youth as part of our global YouthSpark program. We have partnered with Martha and her distinguished colleagues at forums across the US to highlight the increased need for resources for youth to develop 21st century skills. The following discussion continues that momentum, and especially why the unemployment issue is important to all Chicagoans to understand and address.
— Shelley Stern Grach
In good economic times and bad, younger workers consistently experience higher unemployment than older workers. Yet the Great Recession and slow recovery have created new urgency about developing more effective bridges into full-time employment and good jobs for young adults, especially those with less than a bachelor’s degree.
The Chicago region is no exception to these national trends, as we explored in a recent paper, Unemployment among Young Adults: Exploring Employer-Led Solutions. Unemployment among young people aged 18-24 in the region stood at 17.9% in 2013, compared to 9.8% among 25-29 year-olds and 7.8% among workers over age 30.
Taking a closer look at the demographics of the young adult population, they are becoming more diverse, reflecting what our colleague William Frey has described as a “diversity explosion . . . bubbling up the age structure from young to old.” Asian, Latino, and multi-racial populations are growing rapidly while the slower-growing white population is aging.
In the Chicago metropolitan region, the percentage of the population between the ages of 18-29 that is white declined from 63 percent in 1990 to 48 percent in 2013, while the Latino population grew from 14 percent to 25 percent and the Asian population expanded from 3 to 6 percent. The share of black young adults remained fairly stable, shifting modestly from 19 percent to 18 percent.
At the same time, the region’s current workforce is aging. The percentage of workers over age 55 increased from 13 to 20 percent between 2000 and 2013. That trend will continue in coming years. As Frey notes, the waves of baby boom retirements will not end until 2030, and, absent growth in minority populations, the labor force eventually would start to shrink.
This increasingly diverse population represents the next generation of workers in the region. But the current employment and educational profile among young people who are black and Latino present serious cause for concern—both for their individual prospects and for the metro economy. Among the region’s young adults age 18 to 29, 30 percent of whites hold a bachelor’s degree, compared to only seven percent of blacks and Latinos.
Given the strong correlation between education and employment, it’s not surprising that young blacks and Latinos have higher unemployment rates than whites, although discrimination can’t be ruled out either. The unemployment rate among young whites was 8.9 percent in 2013, compared to 14.1 percent among Latinos and 31.2 percent among blacks.
Changing these statistics represents a major challenge for the region, and one that will require concentrated effort by many community players.
The actions of some regional employers who are investing in and developing new approaches to education and skill building are part of the solution. Companies in fields such as manufacturing and IT are taking concrete steps to invest in the skills of current and future workers—and those models can open new pathways for young adults early in their careers. A manufacturing executive whose company developed an internal apprentice-like training program said, “How much do you want to invest in someone who is out the door in 10 to 15 years? We already have that problem.” Another manufacturer linked its human resources strategies and educational partnerships to business success: “Talent is a strategic point for any business. You can say, I want to grow x percent and increase my profit margin by y percent, but those words mean nothing if you don’t have the talent.” Several IT companies are building intensive partnerships with Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges of Chicago to offer academically rigorous, industry-relevant programs of study that extend from ninth grade through an associate degree. These efforts demonstrate that that improving job prospects for young adults and talent pipelines for employers can be complementary goals.
But the demographic changes underway signal that in any case, a “business as usual” approach to education and workforce development is not sufficient to sustain and grow Chicago’s economy.
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. The Metropolitan Policy Program, one of Brookings’ five major divisions, seeks to deliver research and solutions that help metropolitan leaders build an advanced economy that works for all.