Teen joblessness may hit record in summer 2011

[marmar]

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A record-low one in four U.S. teenagers will land a summer job in the coming months as a result of a still-poor job market and lost federal funding, according to a report issued on Monday.

As a consequence, urban studies experts said cities like Chicago -- where summer unemployment among African-Americans aged 16 to 19 years approaches 90 percent -- could experience a rise in street violence.

"Both national and local leadership continue to ignore the plight of youth who are most at risk for potential violence as a result of being left on the streets in the summer months when crime is at its most explosive," Chicago Urban League President Andrea Zopp said in a statement.

The summer employment rate among U.S. teen-agers this year was projected at between 25 percent and 27 percent, based on an analysis of four decades of employment trends by Andrew Sum of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. That would be a post-World War Two low, while as recently as 2006 the teen summer employment rate was 37 percent. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_usa_economy_jobs_teens