This Mother's Day, She's Likely at Work

But most remain upbeat about their future: Pew survey

(NEWSER) - The economy is doing a number on those aged 18 to 34, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center :

• Half say they have taken a job they didn't want.
• More than a third have gone back to school because of the job market.
• Nearly a quarter have taken unpaid work to gain experience.
• About a quarter have moved back in with the folks.
• More than 1 in 5 have postponed having a baby, and about the same number have put off getting married.

Increasingly, 20somethings wait for their 'real' career

(NEWSER) - Stephanie Kelly graduated in 2009 with a degree in advertising; instead she works as a part-time secretary and writes freelance for an online “Secret Santa Organizer.” Amy Klein has a degree in English lit from Harvard, but the 2007 grad has been touring the country in a minivan as part of a punk rock band. Stephanie Morales graduated from Dartmouth and ended up waiting tables for $2.17 per hour. They’re part of the group of highly-educated 20-somethings with dead-end jobs that the New York Times calls “Generation Limbo,” and not all of them are unhappy with where they are in life: “I can cook and write at my own pace,” says Kelly. “I’m fulfilling my artistic goals,” says Klein. More»

Could devastate a still-ailing economy, writes Catherine Rampell

(NEWSER) - Economists say we could be headed for a second recession—and if they’re right, it’s poised to be even more devastating than the first, writes Catherine Rampell in the New York Times . That’s because the starting point for the second dip would be our current weak economy, and this time, policymakers have little room to fix things. Consumers don't have much fat to cut, either—they did that already—meaning families would have to "cut from the bone." More»

Recession has been especially hard on traditionally male jobs

(NEWSER) - Male unemployment has hit an all-time high, with a whopping 1 of every 5 working-age American men jobless, according to the latest government figures. The economic downturn has been especially brutal on traditionally male-dominated fields like construction and manufacturing, the Huffington Post explains, leading some to label it a “mancession.” The figure includes many people standard unemployment figures don’t track, including those who’ve chosen not to look and those who have given up on job hunting. More»

Employment picture likely to remain grim for years, and predicting winning industries is a challenge

(NEWSER) - The job market is likely to be grim for years to come—economists expect that even if job creation returned to the brisk pace of the ‘90s, unemployment wouldn’t return to 5% until 2017. And for many of the unemployed, the numbers belie the real problem: The positions they're trained for may be gone forever. The real estate and finance industries, for example, will probably never support as many employees as they did before the recession. More»