Teen unemployment rates in Illinois are highest on record

Illinois, Chicago--highest unemployment on record for teens--

Report suggests teen unemployment rates in Illinois are higher for low-income blacks, Hispanics | WBEZ 91.5 Chicago: "Researchers at Northeastern University completed the report entitled “The Persistent Depression in the Teen Labor Market in Illinois in Recent Years.” It notes that teens' lack work of experience adversely affects their future employability and wages. The conclusions mirror previous studies that suggest job experience can help deter teens from involvement in the criminal justice system. The report’s authors found only 8.7 percent of black teens in Chicago were employed in 2010-2011. The rate for Asians, though, was 15.5 percent. Twenty percent of the city’s Hispanic teens were employed, and the rate for whites stood at 21 percent. Meanwhile, across Illinois, the teen employment rate fell from just under 50 percent in 2000 to 28 percent in 2012 — the lowest rate in the 42 years for which such data exist. If Illinois teens had been able to maintain their 1999-2000 employment rates during the past year, there would have been another 151,000 teens at work in Illinois in 2011-2012, the report said. . . ."

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