Đừng phí hoài tuổi trẻ

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Nearly one in five young adults, ages 20-24 were neither working nor in school in the first quarter of 2021, raising concerns about the future of the American workforce should they remain unoccupied as their 20s tick on without the vital experience necessary to become a functional, contributing adult member of society.

In the first three months of this year, Bloomberg reports, 3.8 million young people were unemployed but not attending school or vocational training, according to a recent report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. This figure, known as the NEET rate (for youth not in employment, education or training), is up by 740,000 from the same time last year.

While previous analysis from CEPR found that this demographic of young Americans was hit particularly hard during the pandemic as they “were largely employed in sectors that did not allow remote work options and would not be as quick to recover from the pandemic’s shock.”

A year later, however, and young people are still disproportionately without occupation, it appears.

“Inactive youth is a worrying sign for the future of the economy, as they don’t gain critical job skills to help realize (hiện thực hóa) their future earnings potential (tiềm năng thu nhập tương lai),” Bloomberg explains. “Further, high NEET rates may foster environments that are fertile for social unrest.”