from an American reader
The Wall Street Journal, most authoritative voice of American big business, carried an article on Iiarch 3rd on the question of teen-age unemployment. It described teen-age joblessness as the most worrying aspect of the U.S. unemployment problem, "Nearly one out of every six teen-agers whowants work can't find any, That's about three times the over-all U.S. rate. Nearly a quarter of America's four million unemployed, in fact, are teen-agers," it stated. The paper went on to say that “teen-age unemployment is causing widespread concern not only because of its considerable magnitude but also because it has been incrsasing * so spectacularly...the present one-sixth rate for tevun-agers compares with only about one in ten as recently as five years ago. And the rate among the unschooled, unskilled dropouts, who constitute roughly half of today's job-seuking youths, is one in three, up from-. approximately one in eight only five years ago,
"Converging to force toen—age joblessness still higher are the twin pressures of population and automation. Last year 2.8million American youth reached 18, But next year, as a result of the great post-warld war II baby boom, 3.8 million will reach 18, and the number turning 18 will remain at about that high lovel through tho rest of the 1960s and into the 1970s. This imminent stampede of teen-agers into tho job markct means the U.S. economy will have to provide some 20 million more jobs in the noxt ton years if unemploymnet is to be held down, according to cconomists, Tho projected increase, amounting to about two million additional jobs yearly, is moro than twice the nation's actual job growth of 900,000 annually during the last dozen years, these analysts add gloomily."
The Wall Street Journal continued, “Automation also puts pressure on the teen-age job markct because it is the teen-ager who most often lacks the training necessary to land skilled jobs that can't easily be automated. Social workers note that approximately half of thoss teenage dropouts who do manage ta find jobs wind up doing commen labour, a type of work that has boon losing ground for many years, as machines take over such chores, and now accounts for less than 10% of total U.S. omployment." The paper said that the repercussions of teen-age unemployment are far-reaching indeed, “they are reflected in the spiraling teen-age crime rate in most large cities. And they are seen in tha nation's rapidly expanding relief rolls — expanding not because the relief ranks of the blind, disabled and aged are swelling — but because increasing millions of teen-age mathers, deserted by their jobless teen-age boy friends, noed the dole to support their illegit— imate offspring,"