America's Youth Unemployment Rate Is One Of The Worst Of Wealthy, Large Economies

America's Youth Unemployment Rate Is One Of The Worst Of Wealthy, Large Economies

With graduation looming around the corner for many college students, this article seems important. Our economy seems to be back on track after the 2008 recession and everything seems to be improving, except in the area of youth unemployment. After the recession, college graduates had to compete with recently laid off workers who had more job experience than them, making it much more difficult to find jobs. The job market for college graduates has gotten better, but it is still lower than many other nations of equivalent wealth. The article doesn't go into detail which countries, but I would assume they would be European nations. Even when they do become employed, it is many times in jobs where they are underemployed, which does not bode well for them because as it says in the article, 1 in 5 households is stuck with college debt. There are other factors that might not be taken into account though in this scenario, like graduates getting degrees in fields where there might not be many jobs. Those job markets could already be saturated. Even if this is partly the case, the economy does need to create around 4 million jobs to get the unemployment down for the youth back down to normal.

Euro Can Grow to 25 States in Next Few Years in Finnish Scenario

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-05/euro-can-grow-to-25-states-in-next-few-years-in-finnish-scenario.html

According to Finland's Europe Minister Alexander Stubb, EU and the euro have a bright future. He envisions the euro growing to 24-25 members in next few years. In respect to the crisis in Europe, Stubb believes that European authorities did all they could and now it is time for governments to follow on their budget promises, a task that is much easier said than done.
Finland has done something no other nations in EU were able to during the crisis. They kept a stable AAA credit according to three main ratings companies and the country was able to keep its budget within European Union's 3 percent deficit limit. While Finland stands as an example for the rest of the region, there are handful of countries that rely on international bailouts to pay their bills. Therefore, the challenge still stands and it will have to take more than one stable economy to restore confidence in the region.

Slowed economic growth in the US

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/04/201342614326535652.html

                The article discusses that usually economic growth was gaining speed at an annual rate of 2.5% for the first quarter of every year. The department of commerce released a statement saying that GDP had grown 2.5% in the first quarter after growth almost stalled at 0.4% in the fourth quarter of the preceding year. However even with the surge in GDP between quarters it still did not meet economists expectations which were set at 3%. Much of this growth is attributed to the increase in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two thirds of US economic activity. Consumer spending increased at a 3.2% pace, the fastest growth since the later part of 2010. This was a welcome increase seeing as how the previous quarter saw only a 1.8% in growth. Also attributing to the economic growth was a surge in people purchasing vehicles as well as more money from utilities due to a longer and colder winter than average.

          

      Even though economic growth did not meet the expectations I believe that this is little more than a slight bump in the road. Yes, we did not meet the expectations of 3%, but it was still a significant increase from the 0.4% we had the quarter before. Our economy is still recovering from the recession and will take time to do so, I’m sure that we will see this happen again, but we will make progress and we will recover.

Unemployment due to lack of Confidence

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/employers-lack-confidence-not-skilled-labor/2013/05/05/757340c8-b411-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html

This article begins by discussing the possibility that the current unemployment problem is caused by a lack of skilled workers to fill positions. It then explains why this view is not necessarily tenable in the current environment and proposes that the unemployment problem is caused by a lack of confidence among employers.

A lack of confidence on the part of both businesses and consumers have been large contributors to the relatively slow pace of the current recovery. It would be a significant boost to the economy if it were possible to raise confidence, which can certainly be helped by both monetary and fiscal policy. A boost in business confidence could lower the unemployment rate further and help the economy recover faster.

Jobs Data Ease Fears of Economic Slowdown in U.S.

The recent government cuts had many Americans in fear as they were scared the jobs lost in the public sector might slow down the economy again. They feared that these jobs were too important to our fragile economy and might cause the already high unemployment to increase even more. However, these fears are slowly leaving the heads of most Americans as the private sector continues to increase employment. Last month alone private employers filled 176,000 workers with new jobs, which greatly outdoes the public sector layoff of only 11,000. The good news of the employment situation has even rubbed off onto the stock market. Investors have seen this growth as a good thing, causing the stock market climb. It is great to seen good healthy signs of economic recovery and it seems as though things are going to continue this way.