This chapter discusses how the growth of precarious work and the polarization of the US labor market have produced major problems for the employment experiences of young workers. A prominent indicator of young workers’ difficulties in the labor market has been the sharp increase in their unemployment rates since the Great Recession. Another, equally if not more severe, problem faced by young workers today is the relatively low quality of the jobs that they were able to get. Other problems include the exclusion of young workers from the labor market and from education and training opportunities; the inability to find jobs that utilize their education, training, and skills; and the inability to obtain jobs that provide them with an opportunity to get a foothold in a career that would lead to progressively better jobs and thus be able to construct career narratives.
