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Learning to leverage the uniqueness of every age group
Timing, they say, is everything in life. If that's true, then the timing of the millennial generation couldn't possibly be worse. They began entering the workforce in large numbers just as the U.S. economy took the biggest nosedive since the great depression of the 1930s. Unfortunately, the millennials suffered the most from this latest recession as their careers stalled before ever really getting started.
Now, faced with grim job prospects and saddled with record student loan debt, the millennials are experiencing levels of stress way beyond those experienced by baby boomers and the mature generation. Their sense of optimism still seems to flourish, despite these troubled times. Are millennials simply living in a dream world or do they know something that the rest of us don't know?
A New Lost Generation
Even as the U.S. economy finally shows signs of recovering from the woes of the past four years, the scenario for millennials actually seems to be getting worse. Recent estimates by the U.S. Department of Labor place the unemployment rate for millennials at 13.1 percent, nearly 80 percent higher than the country's unemployment rate as a whole. Another 300,000 millennials aren't included in that figure because they've already given up looking for jobs, so the true unemployment figure for millennials in 2013 could be much higher.1
As sobering as these figures may be, however, in some ways the millennials' situation is expected. As the youngest generation in the labor force and the most recently hired it's only natural that they would be the first to go. Hiring freezes and layoffs have doubtless hit generation Y harder than they have the members of generation X and the baby boomers. The millennials, however, have more on their minds these days than just...