Monday, June 5, 2017

The decline in Delta

There have been many different causes postulated for the decline in American masculinity. My preferred candidate is the decline of male teenage employment:
For Baby Boomers and Generation X, the summer job was a rite of passage. Today's teenagers have other priorities. Teens are likeliest to be working in July, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that's not seasonally adjusted. In July of last year, 43 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds were either working or looking for a job. That's 10 points lower than in July 2006. In 1988 and 1989, the July labor force participation rate for teenagers nearly hit 70 percent.

Whether you're looking at summer jobs or at teen employment year-round, the work trends for teenagers show a clear pattern over the last three decades. When recessions hit, in the early 1990s, early 2000s, and from 2007 to 2009, teen labor participation rates plunge. As the economy recovers, though, teen labor doesn't bounce back. The BLS expects the teen labor force participation rate to drop below 27 percent in 2024, or 30 points lower than the peak seasonally adjusted rate in 1989.
If you don't work, you don't learn competence. If you don't learn competence, you remain a functional child.

29 comments:

Stg58/Animal Mother said...

My boys will be shoveling horseshit and working on area ranches in the summer. I need them out of the house so the missus and I can have some quality time.

OGRE said...

Low teen employment is as much a symptom of the issue as it is a cause. The process starts much earlier with the feminization of boys in the public schools. Another cause of the low employment is the greatly increased demand on the time of teens. The schools start very early in the day, and they usually throw a few hours of homework on top; adding a 5 hour shift into the mix turns any schoolday into an 18 hour day. Thats not even factoring in playing any sports, which also seems to have become a much bigger time sink than before.

The feminization of our boys is highly disturbing. I can't shake the utter contempt I feel just hearing a lot of college men speak; most of the boys sound like girls and most of the girls talk like men. Even their mannerisms and the way they carry themselves have been reversed. Its viscerally disgusting.

ThirdMonkey said...

There are three things that my parents gave me that stick with me today:
1. They taught me to fear God and follow Christ
2. They helped me get my first job when I was 13.
3. When I left home at 18, they gave me the gift of poverty. I had to work a 40+ hour workweek as a full-time student. Got married at 19, and ended up putting myself and my wife through college in 4 years debt-free.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

swiftfoxmark2 said...

Why would a teen work in the summer anyway? So they can deal with immigrants and non-assorted English speakers?

Anonymous said...

Nobody wants to hire teenagers because they're useless, they know the job won't help them get into a better college (hence a better job), and they leave after two months. Mexicans may be just as dumb but at least they're submissive.

Purple Tortoise said...

To be fair, it's much more difficult these days for teenage boys to get jobs. For the past decade or two where I live, all fast food, car wash, yardwork, etc. jobs have been exclusively held by immigrants, illegal or otherwise.

Dark Herald said...

Vox is right. A lack of teen employment is a major problem.

A lot things going on here.

First and foremost wages. It now costs too much to employ someone, who it is understood is going to be a nearly worthless employee. Teenagers are bad workers (especially boys) and that is the truth of it. There are a few exceptions but those few are the needles in a haystack. You are teaching those kids how to work.

But it isn't just wages. Millennials really are worse than we were as teen employees. The Entitlement issue is impressive. They have an entire public school system that has convinced them that by age 14 (and regardless of IQ) they are too good for manual labor.

Sole exception; home school kids. That's the teen employment market that all the local employers I know, want to tap into because they are the only ones willing to do the job and try to do it right.

Tatooine Sharpshooters' Club said...

Surprised this gem didn't get a highlight in the post:

"Immigrants are competing with teens for jobs; a 2012 study found that less educated immigrants affected employment for U.S. native-born teenagers far more than for native-born adults."


Jerbs Muricans won't do!


"A recent BLS analysis offers another theory, backed up by solid data. It appears that millions of teenagers aren't working because they're studying instead."

So spending more time "learning" useless shit for college, where they'll pre-spend a large share of any likely future earnings to learn more useless shit.

Jew613 said...

Many employers also demand absurd amounts of experience/training before they will hire someone. It used to be you'd show up they'd hire you and get rid of you if you didn't work out. Now to serve tables management wants 5 years of experience and a bachelor's degree.

Dark Herald said...

There is also the issue of "teenage interns."

I have a friend who runs a boarding kennel and he is constantly getting requests from various parents to let their kid "intern" at his kennel. To which his answer is, "hell no. I'd rather have someone who is depending on his paycheck working for me."

dc.sunsets said...

Labor laws contribute.

When I was 14 a kid could work a summer job. When I was 16 they changed the law to make it impossible for 14/15 y.o. to work. While in college my summer job with a park district involved operating power equipment up to and including end loaders, a backhoe & a crawler/loader, none of which would be allowed now.

Seems like the only young men exposed to adult level responsibility now must grow up on a farm.

Long gone is the Norman Rockwell painting of my youth, where a 12 year old could ride his bicycle into town, go to the hobby shop and buy Estes rocket engines and cannon fuse, then join friends at the college field to launch them without the neighbors or cops caring one bit.

WOPR said...

The intern thing is probably college related. Just to get into pre-vet, you have to have an absurd number of hours doing intern type work. This is for a field where you have a 12-15% chance of being accepted into a vet college after four years of near perfect grades (and more interning) in pre-vet.

You want to get teenagers working fast food and other entry level jobs? Get the colleges to start looking for it on applications. Kill the "I went to some island to help the natives plant trees," and replace it with actual work where your manager's recommendation carries some weight.

Oh, and there is no possible way to pay for college working a minimum wage job. Not with today's costs.

OGRE said...

"Oh, and there is no possible way to pay for college working a minimum wage job. Not with today's costs"

You can't even make rent just working a minimum wage job now, much less pay tuition. Another factor is that in the past few years the service jobs have squeezed the hours down to below 30, so the adults working those jobs now need two jobs to make ends meet. Thus, less open jobs for teens.

Ransom Smith said...

The problem with interning is how much of a scam it is.

120, often no pay. And generally only three credit hours to show for it.

Sure it looks good on a resume. But why not just replace an entire year of college with an apprenticeship? Tech would be prime for this. I'd have killed for my senior year to have been a practical apprenticeship rather than more boring classes.

Anonymous said...

Many employers also demand absurd amounts of experience/training before they will hire someone. It used to be you'd show up they'd hire you and get rid of you if you didn't work out. Now to serve tables management wants 5 years of experience and a bachelor's degree.

@Jew613
This. And then people wonder why labor force participation is so low, and why employers "need" to import foreign workers who, naturally, don't have to meet the 463-bullet-point checklist.

Anonymous said...

Or women-an'-minorities, of course. It's much, much easier for young women to get jobs than young white men.

Days of the Broken Arrows said...

When I was a teen in the '80s, I delivered pizza. We had a staff that was 100 percent teenage boys and most of us were from the same school.

These days, this job is done by immigrants and I don't see middle class parents who'd want their boys to do it. It's considered declasse. I wonder how many other fields this has happened to. But back in the old days, my folks had no qualms about me driving around town into the late hours.

Unknown said...

I have had my whole life served to me on a silver platter so my opinions and experiences are of limited utility.

My first paying job was mowing the lawn.

My first job not paid by my parents was working for a construction company that was working for my parents.

I always did excellent work.

My work is so excellent that it is sometimes inefficient and out of alignment with cost/benefit ratios.

I think that President Trump's focus on trade education as a national policy is a step in the right direction.

Not everyone can be so useful to society as the CEO of SPLC or the Sierra Club.

Agree with dc.sunsets that the good days of free roaming were better.

My own children may or may not be sufficiently "red pilled" to start marching our culture back to sanity and stability.

I am even now considering the notion of dissuading them from college, not to avoid the insane costs, but more to avoid the "blue pill" indoctrination. For example, if they can find work as professional athletes, without going to college, I would probably support that.

Steve Canyon said...

My Dad mowed lawns as a kid. That job is done by crews of Hispanics. In college, he worked construction jobs. Again, Hispanics. Jobs like fast food and sacking groceries, ones that were available when I was a teen, those are done by Hispanics. My mom used to babysit when she was growing up. The bulletin board at my church has plenty of job seekers offering to do maid services and be nannies, again, Hispanics.

From a business standpoint, you hire a kid who may/may not have a solid work ethic, then get them for half a day year-round, and a 38 hour week in the summer. You have to hire 2 people to get the work of 1 full 38-hour week person year-round. In terms of compliance costs, you're pretty much paying double the costs of calculating taxes and benefits and all that stuff than you would just hiring one Hispanic. It makes sense for their bottom line. Not so much a cohesive society of Deltas.

tweell said...

I used to mow neighborhood lawns on the weekend for spending money. Some illegals wanted my little 'business' and beat me up when I refused to let them have it. My father administered a righteous beatdown on them, and I mowed lawns until I left for boot camp. The illegals just waited a few years before taking the job over, that's all.

My brother delivered papers and washed windows. The paper shifted to adults delivering the paper, so he lost that job. Window washing never did get that much business to start with.

For a few years, my parents would send us kids to relatives in Oregon for the summer where we'd pick strawberries. Illegals took those jobs too. Even my dad wasn't going to take on that many illegals without help, and help wasn't coming.

The only thing I can think of that I did growing up to make money that hasn't been taken over by adults (generally illegals) was repairing home electronics. Fixing TV's, radios and even the first VCRs made me a bit of coin, but they're not made to be worked on nowadays.

ThirdMonkey said...

Be a part of the solution. Teach your kids to mow your own damn lawn, pick your own damn strawberries, sack your own damn groceries, and deliver your own damn pizzas. They have to go back, and you have to push back. Support businesses that hire teenagers. If there aren't any jobs for kids, they'll just have to create their own. If you don't they'll be living in your basement forever.

Unknown said...

Linking this thread back to "Game" in the context of getting laid...

I never had any bangs that resulted from interactions at my job (at least not until I was in college), and with the best work-related bangs being during my older career years.

Once, in high school, when I was out mowing the lawn, some girls that I had been flirting with recently drove by, and teased me for looking like a dork, and we arranged to meet later that week at the swimming club. The girl who I was least interested in arranged to have her bikini top come off while we were swimming, but not the girl who I was most interested in. So I didn't make a decisive move and never did bang any of them.

I think a good job for young men would probably be lifeguard, because I have heard that it presents good opportunities for Game and bangs.

Daniel said...

Laws in Argentina make you a criminal if you hire a teenager. Even my own daughter in my own fucking small company. That law was passed by a retarded sjw leftist goverment not so long ago... Probably your sjws will try to pass a similar one too

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Unknown said...

@ dredd sirius
"I think that President Trump's focus on trade education as a national policy is a step in the right direction."

Big time step in the right direction. Here in NYC--Trump's old market--3 out 4 welders the union hall sends me are from the English-speaking West Indies, Ireland, or Eastern Europe.

The unions used to train these guys.

rho said...

What was VD's teenage employment?

Unknown said...

Which is all massively effected by mass immigration. The construction and manual labor jobs I had as a young man are not available for my nephews nor will they be for my son. They're taken by tight knit ethnic groups that take care of their own. So instead of being around grown men learning how to acco,Polish a task and exist in a hierarchy they worked at cvs or Starbucks. Often with a female "manager" with all that entails.

Jew613 said...

Annie, that is because the Obama Justice Department and to a lesser extent the Bush II administration held a gun to the unions heads saying they had to bring in more women and minorities. So they brought "minorities" who could do the work and women who join then quickly quit. They will still train any Americans who join.

LibertyPortraits said...

I just wanted to comment to point out how stupid Cataline is for thinking teenagers now are millennials. Millennials were working as teens from 2000-2008 at best.

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