Economic Recovery Hits Young Adults Hardest

By Penelope Coleman

NEW YORK- Numbers released over the last month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that the American economy has started a slow rebound back to healthy growth after several years of recession or stagnation. Recent college graduates, a demographic hit especially hard by the economic slowdown, have started to enter the workplace at a record pace. As they do so, they are learning that their long-awaited jobs are not as desirable as they once hoped.

“It totally sucks, man,” said Mike Huckleberry, a 2011 Rutgers graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications. “I took this job selling advertising for the Newark Star-Ledger and I never realized that it would become, like, my whole freaking life.” Mr. Huckleberry included in his list of complaints being tired all the time from getting up at 7:45 AM, having to plan his meals up to a day in advance to make sure he has enough food to pack a lunch, and not being able to catch up on ESPN’s slate of daytime talk shows such as First Take, Around the Horn, and College Football Live.

Mr. Huckleberry's halcyon days.

The workplace itself has been a veritable minefield for these young professionals. Experienced workers nationwide have taken note of the fact that these new employees need breaks at least once every hour and seem to think that the dryer is an appropriate substitute for an ironing board even though their clothes remain exceedingly wrinkly. Perhaps most annoying are the constant, frantic attempts to minimize Facebook and Twitter windows when coworkers enter their cubicles, despite the fact that no one cares what they are doing with their time. These experienced workers have expressed some frustration, but feel confident that the newer workers will eventually learn the time-tested methods for wasting hours at work, such as carrying on lengthy conversations about what happened over the weekend in colleagues' offices or scheduling unnecessary meetings and expensing coffee and donuts to the company account.

Even the work-related activities have proven to be far less engaging that previously anticipated. According to Mr. Huckleberry, “I interned at a radio station in college and it always seemed like I was the only one who didn’t have anything going on. I figured it was because I was just an intern and nobody trusted me to do anything important. Nope. Now that I am a salaried, full-time employee, I still somehow have about 2 hours of work to do in an 8-hour work day.” To cover for his lack of productivity, Mr. Huckleberry often circles the office floor to gather details on his coworkers’ projects so he has issues to talk about when his superiors ask him how thing are going.

One of the unforeseen consequences of young adults getting jobs is that many of them have moved out of their parents’ houses into vastly inferior rental apartments that they can afford. These apartments share little in common with college dorms that have on-site laundry facilities, communal bathrooms that are professionally cleaned every day, and dining halls that purchase, prepare, and clean up after meals for a small fee. Instead, these young adults are finding that the indignity of moving back home after college was a blessing in disguise as they navigate the choppy waters of taking care of themselves. On balance, most are discovering that the shame of sneaking into one’s childhood bedroom at 3 AM is worth the free food, lodging, and cleaning that comes with it.

Many new professionals are finding that the problems associated with professional life do not start and stop at the office door. For instance, new hires often feel pressured to attend office happy hours and other social events put on by coworkers. Jill Crockett, who recently took her first job selling car insurance for Liberty Mutual after 18 months of unemployment, explains that these happy hours are often anything but. “First of all, everyone wants to go to these stuffy downtown bars that are pitch black right after work. They always forget that I am broke, then they start ordering appetizers for the table that I can’t afford. Then everyone orders white wine or fancy cocktails, so I can’t really get away with having a cheap beer and I end up drinking a martini to fit in. I don’t even like olives, so ordering a martini is basically like ordering a glass full of cold gin. It tastes so gross that I have to drink it extremely slowly, which mean I can’t even get a buzz while I have to listen to these fat middle-aged people lie about how good their kids are at tennis or jazz trombone. I spend the whole time checking my phone to see if enough time has passed for me to get out of there so I can go home and watch half of Homeland before I fall asleep on the couch and start the sequence over again the next morning.”

The Presidential candidates have yet to weigh in on this burgeoning opposition to job growth. So far, both candidates have supported policies that aim to grow the economy and put more Americans to work. Recently, though, some pundits have speculated that Mitt Romney may target Barack Obama’s youthful base with promises of job-killing measures that would help take them out of the workforce for the foreseeable future. While the move is seen as a political gamble, promises of layoffs may be the type of tradition-bucking move that could put the challenger in the driver’s seat.