The unemployment rate for those 16-19 rockets to 16.3 percent, Blacks to 8.3 percent.
Unemployment Rate by Age Group
- 16-19: 16.3 Percent
- 20-24: 8.3 Percent
- 25-34: 5.0 Percent
- 35-44: 3.4 Percent
- 45-54: 3.2 Percent
- 55+: 3.1 Percent
Unemployment Rate by Race
Unemployment Rate by Race
- Overall: 4.6 Percent
- Black: 8.3 Percent
- White 3.9 Percent
- Hispanic: 5.0 Percent
Change in Unemployment Rate by Age Group and Race
The unemployment rate bottomed in April of 2023.
The above chart shows the unemployment rate rise since then and how much of it occurred under Trump.
Change by Age Group and Race Since 2023-04 and January 2025
- Overall: 1.2 PP, 0.6 PP
- Black: 3.5 PP, 2.1 PP
- White 0.8 PP, 0.4 PP
- Hispanic: 0.6 PP, 0.2 PP
- 16-19: 6.9 PP, 4.5 PP
- 20-24: 2.8 PP, 0.4 PP
- 25-34: 1.1 PP, 0.8 PP
- 35-44: 0.4 PP, 0.3 PP
- 45-54: 0.8 PP, 0.6 PP
- 55+: 0.7 PP, 0.1 PP
Labor Market Recap
December 3, 2025 : Small Businesses Drop 120,000 Jobs in November, ADP Total Down 32,000
Year-Over-Year Change
- Small: -197,000
- Medium: +275,000
- Large: +1,012,000
December 4, 2025: Challenger Reports Employers Announced 71,321 Job Cuts in November
Announcements imply future, not immediate, layoffs and unemployment claims.
Unlike large employers, small businesses have fewer means of tariff avoidance and less ability to hold inventory or eat the tariffs.
December 5, 2025: Revelio Says Payrolls Decline by 9,000 the 5th Drop in 7 Months
We don’t have BLS reports but we do have ADP and Revelio.
December 11, 2025: How Fast is the US Shedding Foreign-Worker Jobs?
Think carefully.
Please read that last link. It’s an unbiased assessment that vastly differs from other reports on what’s happening with US and foreign workers.
Finally, please note President Trump Promised a Manufacturing Boom. Where Is It?
The answer is China.
home prices in gated communities surge upward in the wake of such disclosures and do so faster than the tax rates on them do
plan accordingly
rising real estate prices everywhere are a consequence, understand them
Full-time employment is dropping and both part-time and multiple jobholders are increasing. Not signs of strong labor market.
A lot of employers don’t want to hire youth as they don’t want to work. Their work ethics suck. They show up late to work, call in sick and expect to be on their phone during work time. This includes college graduates. The good youth that want to work have a hard time getting a good paying job because of the ones that don’t want to work.
About 15 years ago I was chatting with a woman that ran a successful business and she said I rarely if ever hire anyone under 30.( technically illegal right)
15 years ago! It has gotten 10 times worse as our culture disintegrates
The boss lady at a Texas Midas car repair said she told her oil change tech that if he could show up on time for 2 weeks straight, she would add a buck an hour to his pay. The young man was late the next day for a job that starts at 10 am.
Tell him his job starts at 9am so he makes it by 10am?
OK, Karen.
A lot of employers have ALWAYS not wanted to hire youth for similar reasons. That’s why their unemployment percentage has ALWAYS been the highest of the studied demographic groups. And why historically a significant reason why they have earned the lowest wages and garnered the fewest hours worked.
Mish is alluding to the start of a possible recession.
But I can’t wait to hear your opinion for why blacks aren’t being hired either.
This is why youth unemployment tends to be higher than overall unemployment all of the time – but it DOES NOT explain the sudden surge in youth unemployment.
I know a lot of young people who are having no trouble finding and keeping jobs. Out of dozens, I have heard of only 1 who lost his job for the sort of reasons you mention.
Stereotyping an entire generation is generally a bad idea, there is always plenty of dispersion in the bell curves.
Also, if you read some historical newspapers with letters to the editor, or listen to the pop music of past eras, you learn that the older generations have ALWAYS said the exact same things about the younger generations. The Depression survivors criticized soft baby-boomers in exactly the same way that the boomers are now criticizing the millennials. It goes back much farther than that, too.
It’s actually pretty darn funny to see and hear the exact same complaints, just written with different words, from one generation to the next.
I suppose the underlying motivator is that older retirees fundamentally rely on the productivity of the younger workers to provide for them. People are programmed to think “I have Social Security” or “I have saved wealth”, but the reality is that the national standard of llving can only come from what is produced. Everyone knows in their hearts that if less is produced, there’s less for everyone, and it costs more. So everyone has the incentive to encourage the younger workers to work hard, since that benefits everyone in one way or another!
The tech blogs are full of news about few entry level job openings. Management is pinning its hopes on AI systems to do the grunt work.
We’ll see how that pans out.
Several years ago the WSJ had a story about a person wanting to move a candle business from China to Maryland. Found a vacant facility that would work and it took just 30 months to get all the approvals to open.
Why would anyone think that a manufacturing surge would occur in 10 months?
– The unemployment rate for those 16-19 rockets to 16.3 percent, Blacks to 8.3 percent.
> Let’s take the obvious Race Baiting out of this equation. It’s very nice to Add Blacks and Hispanics, but No Other Race! Next time have the White alone, and if you wish to add other races, but not for nefarious reasons, then add ALL Races. Your other choice is to have segments specifically on White, and then specifically of Asians, Blacks, Chinese Etc. so as to avoid Racial Discrimination and Comparisons.
– Unemployment Rate by Age Group
16-19: 16.3 Percent
20-24: 8.3 Percent
25-34: 5.0 Percent
35-44: 3.4 Percent
45-54: 3.2 Percent
55+: 3.1 Percent
> With all of that being said, I would hope everyone would prefer the % be as follows:
1. Highest % to the most needed Age
2. Next Highest % to the most needed Age etc.
3. Least Highest % to the least needed Age etc.
So it would look like this as an example:
16-19: Highest % due to Actual Needs Vs. Wants
20-24: Second Highest % due to Actual Needs Vs. Wants
25-34: Third Highest % due to Actual Needs Vs. Wants
35-44: Highest % (Equally) due to Actual Needs Vs. Wants
45-54: Highest % (Equally) due to Actual Needs Vs. Wants
55+. : Second Highest % due to Healthcare Cost, and limited Incomes
We need to address issues that are needed over wants. Age groups could be a bit different as a result as well. Ex. Third Highest not up to Age 34? Second Highest not until 60-65?
1. The Younger can live at home, bunk up with friend’s etc. The most flexible, least in debt, and highest support systems available.
2. The Middle Age groups UP have the most debt with a possible mortgage, children, daycare etc.
3. The Oldest are a wildcard, as some are wealthy, some flat broke, and the rest in the middle. The ALL however have healthcare covered, S/S (decent) for many, and the best chance of having a place to live with Family.
Oops.. 35-55+ “Lowest”
Stfu
To be fair, a good chunk of Trump’s base could not care less about black unemployment.
They do care, deeply. They want the blacks and other minorities to suffer. They will cheer if they lose one hand and minorities lose both hands.
Those Christian “Oil Securing” soldiers have to come from somewhere. What better place than disenfranchised youth!
The GOP strategists may care.
oh here we go with the race baiting. I’d say 75% of Trump voters this time around voted for Trump because they see through all the democrat lies.
What the hell has the democratic party done for black people in America? Free welfare, destroy the black family, promise them nothing but more free stuff and race bait and make statements like you.
Trump was in the Bronx surrounded by black and hispanic a year ago. Where the hell was Biden? In his basement on feed telling black americans they aint black if they dont vote for him
That bullshit is so tiring. Even black folkes dont buy it anymore
What are the chances that the Government Shutdown was CONCOCTED to hide these shitty numbers?
zero
As AI drinks the milkshakes of the economy by inexorably replacing human workers, both blue and white-collar, unemployment will continue to trend upwards.
Within the next 15 to 20 years, and likely sooner, AI and robotics will have replaced the need for humans to labor at the daily drudgery of work.
Robots will perform most if not all work more efficiently and reliably than humans. Existing governments and their Remora politicians/lobbyists will be, thankfully, entries in history books. The concept of money will lose all meaning. When machines can produce goods and services in unlimited abundance, money becomes unnecessary.
Those who believe society will continue limping forward under the same political frameworks, anxieties about employment, fixation on investments and endless cycles of warfare are deluding themselves. Backward-looking economic systems that attempt to predict the future by measuring the past will not survive.
Any transformation of this size will be challenging. There will inevitably be a transitional period with many people unable to find work, which will require some form of universal basic income until everything that anyone needs or wants becomes free, provided by robot workers.
The bottom line is that in this future world run by AI and robotic labor, concepts such as economic growth, investment, unemployment, money, and yes, even national borders will have disappeared. YEA!
You appear to be celebrating a dystopian future? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Dystopian is in the eye of the beholder. Your vision is clouded.
Tell me something: In that world you’re describing, who’s going to get the beach houses? Can we all have beach houses? Or are some of us condemned to live in the “middle of a frozen cornfield” (it’s my term for Illinois/Indiana)?
What would be the criteria?
And without borders, can 200 million Chinese come in and just take the entire shoreline of the current USA? Or not? Why not?
And without government, who will protect private property? Who will stop me from just grabbing your house?
And who’s going to get the best and most food and clothes, and how?
The people who will get the beach houses and the best clothes and food are the same greedy bas*ards that have them now. 99% of humanity will live in poverty and the 1% will have more wealth than they can spend in a 1000 lifetimes.
You’re unclear on the concept, I see. Kick back and try thinking a bit about what I wrote and the possible implications.
In this world, EVERYONE is equal and EVERYONE gets the same exact treatment, priority to assets, needs fulfilled, etc.
The AI builds and manages the queues and enforces rules it has to lay down, as necessary and with whatever force is necessary.
Anyone who wants one! 70% of the Earth is water. There is a virtually unlimited amount of beaches, if that is where you want to live. Remember, in this future, there are no nation boundaries any longer. No individual and separate governments.
BUT you will only be allowed ONE house at a time. So choose wisely. Or live in assigned housing until your next house is built somewhere if you don’t like where you presently live.
It’s also possible that the AI ruler will force mandatory sterilization or birth control on humans, so over time, the population will decline, leaving much more living space available.
The AI will maintain a police force to stop malcontents, such as yourself, from becoming an annoyance to everyone else. This may involve dumping your ass into the Soylent Green tanks.
Don’t worry. Be happy.
Thanks for inviting me to your imaginary future, but no thanks. Be sure to come back in 20 years and say “I told you so”
Yes, sir, King Hal.
What I am trying to get my head around in a world where almost all jobs are performed by non-human, who has money to pay for any products? If nobody has job, the AI/Robot economy collapses. Econonomically speaking, omewhere there is a balance point or there is a Terminator style elimination of humans where robots make the same mistakes.
Have you not been paying attention? UBI is what pays for it
There is no need for money when everything is provided FREE by the AI and its robot workers! Sheese, it’s not a difficult concept.
The beach houses only go to the wealthy liberals. Obama has a fancy one too. I guess that global warming climate change stuff is really bullshit
“The bottom line is that in this future world run by AI and robotic labor, concepts such as economic growth, investment, unemployment, money, and yes, even national borders will have disappeared.”
Why would “AI” and robots that control production cater to nearly 10 billion people? Seems like an inefficient use of resources that those producers wouldn’t perpetuate. Your scenario isn’t logical — a logical expectation is that a different path would be chosen by the producers in this hypothetical future.
We don’t know. Perhaps the AIs will have a benevolent side and will want to take care of humans as in the Culture novels? What is the value of “resources” if you don’t use them?
Or perhaps they will decide that this universe would be better off with only machine intelligence and eliminate biological intelligences, such as humans?
Or something in-between.
All such scenarios have been explored in various SF novels and articles over the past century..
From what has been witnessed thusfar, it would seem that benevolence isn’t in the range of outcomes based on what has been created up to this point in time. (e.g. trading algorithms colluding, chatbots advocating individuals self-terminate)
The resources would be put to use, just not to support billions of human lives contributing nothing to ‘the cause’. It strikes me as naive to expect an entity/collective more powerful and capable than human society essentially keeping all of humanity as spoiled pets.
The benevolence doesn’t exist because the machines have been programmed by humans and humans are generally greedy, self-centered, backstabbing, lying, unreliable, untrustworthy pieces of crap . Once machines take on their own development, this could change.
Resources are unlimited in the universe. There are an infinite number of planets, solar systems, stars, galaxies. What would it cost the machines in terms of resources or effort to show their human creators some love? ALmost nothing on the scale of the universe.
OT:
Big structural shifts are going n in the Precious Metals markets. China just opened the Guangzhou Futures Exchange to silver on the 16th of December, 2025. Reportedly the exchange stood for delivery of 20 million ounces already and is building its inventory of silver in addition to Platinum and Palladium.
All trades are denominated in Yuan and th eExchange aims to stabilize prices for local users of metal. It will be directly competing with the high growth Shanghai Futures Exchange.
I expect announcements in 2026 of the addition of copper and gold to the mix.
>>>
Gold yes, it has a lot of climbing to go, before its ultimate collapse. Central Banks are onboard, or are they really? People are jumping on the bandwagon, or are they really? Bulk Money buys can skew things real fast for the ones that wish for that right now. If you cannot afford to HOLD then be careful what you wish for is all I am stating…
Perhaps, but that is what the gold mining stocks are for. Maintaining or growing your buying power against a deflating currency.
And I really agree on the “Be careful what you wish for” aspect of holding physical gold as it implies the collapse of society to really become useful. That is why I invest in the miners. They are leveraged to the price. Most have their gold reserves valued at $1,200 to $1,750 and that has to be reconciled as to the actual valuations of the companies.
This site used to have meaningful discussions on gold and PM mining and trading. At this time PM’s and higher cost commodity metals are appreciating materially. Yet there is no discussion regarding the economics underlying significant appreciation of all or any aspects of PM’s. Mish is burned out on the topic…