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There’s a higher percentage of men aged 25 to 34 working than there has been since the Great Recession.
This was highlighted in Friday’s jobs report which documented that the employment-to-population ratio for this demographic reached 86.5% in March, an increase of 0.8% from February.
That’s the highest level since June 2008, when the U.S. was contending with the worst recession in decades.
Along with the increase in participation, median weekly earnings have also gone up for this cohort, most of whom are millennials. Median usual weekly earnings for men 25 to 34 shot up 9.9% in the fourth quarter compared to the same period of 2017, the second-fastest rate of growth in the history of the series.
It’s a reversal of fortune for a group that economists had been worried about. In 2016, for instance, the Kansas City Fed published a paper, Why Are Prime-Age Men Vanishing from the Labor Force?.
That reported contended there was a “declining demand for middle-skill workers in response to advancements in technology and globalization.”
Since 2016, education rates for the group rose, perhaps contributing to the rise in participation rates. Unemployment for men with college degrees has also decreased.
“In 2011-2013, it was thought that they [men aged 25-34] don’t have necessary skills so they aren’t working,” said Dean Baker, a prominent economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
“It was thought that young men were at home playing video games, but that wasn’t the reason they weren’t working,” he said. “There was a weak labor market at that time.”
Baker said that the labor market is much stronger now, which is especially evident in the latest jobs report, but he did caution not to expect 3% growth of the U.S. economy this year.
“We have had some strange economic data in the past couple of months,” Baker said while referring to the bleak jobs report for February. “There have also been weak housing numbers which doesn’t necessarily mean there’s going to be a recession soon, but you do start to worry.”
