Hunting for Work -- Again
Cody Preston was laid off again Thursday.</br></br>In November, Mr. Preston, 25, was featured in an article in The Wall Street Journal about high unemployment among young workers. He was in the midst of a divorce and had moved in with his parents, repairing his finances with a rent vacation and an $11-an-hour job at recreational vehicle maker Roadmaster Inc. But the job ended Thursday.</br></br>"The saying is 'It's amazing what you can get used to,'" Mr. Preston said late Thursday, after collecting his final, $340 check. "It's sad that I'm used to it. I shouldn't be. But at the same time what else are you going to do? Laugh or cry: Pick one."</br></br>Mr. Preston, who still lives with his parents in Milwaukie, Ore., belongs to a group that has been hard hit by the recession: Young men who didn't attend college but haven't had time to build up significant skills and work experience.</br></br>Males between 25 and 34 years old who have a high-school diploma but no college degree had a 10.9% unemployment rate in November. The picture is even bleaker for slightly younger men: High-school graduates 20 to 24 years old had an unemployment rate of 18.9%. Those numbers aren't adjusted for seasonality, but are still well above the 8.6% seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate.