THE KIDS AREN'T ALRIGHT

Trump Chaos Fuels Jobs Crisis for Young Americans

Youth joblessness reaches 10.5 percent as tariffs, high interest rates, and AI impact entry-level hiring.

Youth unemployment jumped to 10.5 percent in August. The chill is biting hardest at the bottom rung, where entry-level roles are vanishing and companies are freezing hiring amid tariff turmoil and high borrowing costs, per a report by Axios. Government revisions show the economy added about 850,000 jobs in the 12 months through March, underscoring a weaker backdrop for young job seekers. The unemployment rate is the worst levels since 2016, barring the economic collapse during the COVID-19 pandemic. “There is a pile-up of young people that are looking for work,” Guy Berger of the Burning Glass Institute told the outlet. “The risk is a lost generation of young people who took a long time to find work.” Confidence is cratering, too. A study by the Bank of New York found workers put the odds of landing a new job at just 44.9 percent—the lowest since tracking began in 2013.