This Briefing Paper looks at the employment situation for the class of 2010, which will be entering a labor market with the highest rates of unemployment in at least a generation. It also shows that unemployment rates for both college graduates and non-graduates younger than 25 are nearly double their pre-recession levels.

Since the start of the recession, the youth labor force (workers age 16 to 24) has contracted by 1.1 million workers, and most young adults who come across hard economic times will fall through the large gaps in the public safety net.