Generation Jobless: Young Men Suffer Worst as Economy Staggers
PORTLAND, Ore.—Few groups were hit harder by the
recession than young men, like Cody Preston and Justin Randol,
25-year-old high-school buddies who didn't go to college.
The unemployment rate for males between 25
and 34 years old with high-school diplomas is 14.4%—up from 6.1% before
the downturn four years ago and far above today's 9% national rate. The
picture is even more bleak for slightly younger men: 22.4% for
high-school graduates 20 to 24 years old. That's up from 10.4% four
years ago.
In contrast to those men, Messrs. Preston and Randol are old enough
to have had some time in the job market. They worked together installing
granite counters before the housing bust.
Mr. Preston married his girlfriend and settled into what he assumed
would be a secure pattern of long hours on job sites and enough cash to
travel and enjoy restaurants and bars. Mr. Randol at one point felt
flush enough to buy a 63-inch television set and a 50-gallon fish tank
for his apartment.
Then the recession hit. Neither man has found steady work since that
pays as much as he earned before. Mr. Preston's marriage broke up and he
moved back in with his parents, an increasingly common pattern for
jobless young men. Mr. Randol has made do with help from girlfriends and
by living in houses packed with roommates to keep the rent low.
For such men, high unemployment is eroding their sense of economic
independence. Their predicament reflects that of a generation of
Americans facing one of the weakest job markets in modern history.
About Generation Jobless
Americans 25 and under face one of the toughest job markets in modern history. This week, The Wall Street Journal explores their stories.Also in the Series:
"We're at risk of having a generation of
young males who aren't well-connected to the labor market and who don't
feel strong ownership of community or society because they haven't
benefited from it," says Ralph Catalano, a professor of public health at
the University of California, Berkeley.
Mr. Preston has a steady job, making parts for recreational vehicles
for $11 an hour. And living with his parents rent-free allows him to
start paying off debt he built up during the slump, he says. But he
keeps looking for work that will pay the $14 an hour he made installing
granite. What made construction especially attractive was the potential
for lots of overtime, which allowed him to beef up his paychecks.
On a recent afternoon, he sat in his parents' kitchen, combing online
classified ads. But construction work remains scarce and other
positions available for which he's qualified don't pay more than he
makes at the factory.
Sue Preston, his mother, says several of her friends are
helping out their grown sons, providing either money or shelter or
both. She works in payroll at a telecommunications company, and neither
she nor her husband, a truck driver who worked his way up into
operations, has a college degree. That wasn't an issue when they were
starting out, she says: Trade and production jobs were not only
available, in many cases they paid enough that many blue-collar wives
didn't have to work.
Young Men Feel Job-Market Pain
Cody Preston, 25, keeps looking for work that will pay what he made installing granite counters.From College Major to Career
Here's a look at how various college majors fare in the job market, based on 2010 Census data.
Now she worries that lower wages—and, more
pressingly, the dearth of jobs—has left young men like her son
disaffected and depressed. "They're working minimum-wage jobs and a lot
of times, they don't have benefits, they don't have a full 40 hours a
week. It's such a struggle they're kind of like, 'What for? All I'm
doing is surviving,' " she says. "They have to move back home or they
have to have multiple roommates. How are you going to take on a wife and
a family in that situation?"
The share of men age 25-34 living with their parents jumped to 18.6%
this year, up from 14.2% four year ago and the highest level since at
least 1960, according to the Census Bureau.
Mr. Randol, an ex-convict who is in irregular contact with his
parents, says he doesn't have access to the live-at-home reset button.
So the Portland native is stretching his $187-a-week unemployment checks
by living in a two-story $1,000-a-month house, 40 minutes away in St.
Helens, Ore., that he splits with a couple and a friend whose claim to a
small bedroom fluctuates based on whether he has a girlfriend.
Mr. Randol admits that over the last three years he's indulged in too
much beer and "Call of Duty," the popular war-simulation videogame.
Empty liquor bottles line the top of his kitchen cabinets as decoration.
"I just hope stuff gets better," he says as he battles online rivals
one evening.
Mr. Randol says he's looking for work but grumbles that the
remodeling jobs advertised pay between $10 and $12 an hour, with no
assurance of full-time work.
Mr. Randol was a poor student who got in trouble in high school and
earned a high-school equivalency certificate in lieu of a diploma. He is
the first to admit that a checkered past has hampered his job
prospects. In 2004 he served a year for burglary and not long after
added an assault charge that resulted from a fist fight during a night
of hard partying.
But when the housing boom came, he says, his past wasn't such a big
issue. After working fast-food counters and other minimum-wage jobs, in
2007 he landed a position installing granite for Fineline Pacific. He
started at $10 an hour and within six months was making $15, with
plentiful overtime. Mr. Randol told Mr. Preston to apply. He did and was
hired.
"They were looking for anybody who would show up to work," says Ted
Sherritt, chief executive of Floform Countertops, the Winnipeg,
Manitoba, company that acquired Fineline.
Mr. Preston lived well with his construction money. He took out his
girlfriend frequently and paid for a snowboarding trip, during which he
proposed to her at the summit of Mount Hood, Ore. Married, they settled
in Canby, Ore., about 40 minutes from Portland. "I was in a hurry to
grow up," he says.
Both Mr. Preston and Mr. Randol say the first sign
of trouble appeared on a white dry-erase board at company headquarters.
The list of jobs became short, and then empty.
Mr. Sherritt says sales at the company dropped 40% through 2008 and
2009. When it reduced head count, Mr. Randol was among those let go.
Floform acquired Fineline late in 2008.
Mr. Preston was kept on a bit longer than his friend but eventually
lost his job, too. Mr. Preston was able to find work at a bike store, a
skate shop and other retailers, but at lower wages than at his
construction job and often with sporadic hours.
To save on rent, he and his wife moved to her parents' house in
Salem, Ore., a 45-minute drive from Portland. Later, when the couple
separated, he went to live with friends in Bend, Ore., 3½ hours from
Portland. He found occasional jobs—one was at a gas station—but after a
few months gave up and moved home.
"I wasn't living, I was surviving," he says.
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