For young adults, a job famine

Some analysts look at weekly unemployment-claim reports, which track applications for benefits. But most young people don't qualify, and thus aren't counted.

"You have to have had a job for a certain amount of time and made a certain amount of money," said Eileen Appelbaum of Philadelphia, a senior labor economist with the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington.

Young people tend to have sporadic employment interrupted by longer periods of unemployment, which makes them ineligible for benefits.

Statistics aside, the current tough state budget scenarios have prompted many states, including Pennsylvania, to tighten eligibility, making it even more difficult for young people to qualify.

The U.S. Census Bureau collects data from many households, but there is a time lag.

The U.S. Labor Department's Employment Situation report is probably the best source, because it relies on a statistically adjusted survey taken monthly, Appelbaum said.

In August, the Labor Department reported the national unemployment rate among people ages 20 to 24 was 14.8 percent, significantly better than the 17.1 percent reached in April 2010.

But April 2010 was the worst month since World War II, the earliest data available.

"The fact is that the unemployment problem is not getting better," Appelbaum said.

"With the shortage of jobs, the jobs that young people might have gotten in the past are going to older women," she said. "Adult women are viewed by employers as a more stable workforce than young people."

Adding to the difficulty is the size of the youth cohort, said Peter Cappelli, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2009, the United States graduated the largest high school class in American history, Cappelli said.

Those young people are competing with one another for scarcer and scarcer jobs, Cappelli said.

Hardly the slacker generation that some observers call them, young people today are "falling all over themselves trying to figure out what employers want" in order to find work, he said.

Money matters.

Levich's family couldn't cover all his expenses, so he worked 30 hours a week while attending college in New York, making it impossible for him to do the kind of unpaid internships that provide valuable experience on a resumé.

"I couldn't afford to work 25 to 30 hours unpaid," he said.