His interview was Friday.
On Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau released figures showing that one in three young people, ages 20 to 29, were unemployed in 2010. In Philadelphia, the situation is worse, with barely more than one in two on a payroll.
"The jobs aren't there," Levich said. "Everyone wants experience that we don't have, because no one is offering us the jobs to get the experience."
With 14.1 percent unemployment nationally, the 20-somethings are worse off than any other age group, the census reports. The same trend holds locally, with Philadelphia reporting its highest unemployment rate - 19.4 percent - was for young adults.
Unemployment among young people has remained high throughout the recession, especially among high school dropouts, said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
But there has been a higher-than-normal unemployment rate even among 18-to-24-year-olds with college degrees, Van Horn said. "It's a recession effect."
In fact, during the recession, the United States has recorded the lowest rate of participation in the labor force among people younger than 24 "in quite a long time," Van Horn said.
That effect has long-lasting consequences, he said.
People who enter the workforce during times of high unemployment tend to earn less over their lifetimes than others, as employers tend to pay less, Van Horn said. Even when good times return, those workers never catch up.
"These young people will pay a penalty for entering the workforce in 2007 vs. 1997," he said.
A multitude of government surveys try to capture statistically what the jobless young people know from experience.
