The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that more than 47 million workers voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021. This phenomenon, referred to as the Great Resignation, is the subject of a new study from the Shift Project. Prior research had relied on labor mar­ket data and lim­it­ed anec­do­tal evidence until Why Are Young Workers Leaving Their Jobs? took a dif­fer­ent approach. This new research engaged nearly 3,000 young work­ers and tracked sev­er­al telling fac­tors, includ­ing their rea­sons for quit­ting and their sat­is­fac­tion at each job. This blogpost by the Annie E. Casey Foundation discusses the results of the study, including the motivations for quitting and employment within the service sector.

The Center for Law and Social Policy’s (CLASP) mental health work has consistently shown that young people strongly prefer to receive support from peers and to receive support in trusted community-based settings, including youth workforce development programs. This blogpost from CLASP highlights a promising program aimed at young adults in Los Angeles (LA) County that will launch in the summer of 2023. It will bring together two sectors that are often siloed: workforce development and mental health services. LA County has 14 Youth CareerSource Centers that serve as hubs for youth workforce development programs. As part of this new program to support mental health, each center will recruit 3 to 5 young people ages 18-24 to participate in a peer youth support certification program. The partnership between the youth workforce system and the county-level mental health system in LA County demonstrates an expansion of mental health care for opportunity youth enrolled in workforce development programs, while also building career opportunities for young people who want to provide much-needed support to their peers.

Youth Thrive, a research-informed framework on youth well-being and an action-oriented initiative of the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), is designed to better support healthy development and promote well-being for youth with partners across the country. For the past eight years, Youth Thrive has focused on strategies to improve systems that serve youth who are most marginalized in society, specifically focusing on child welfare and juvenile justice systems and the service system that supports youth who are at-risk of homelessness. CSSP will host a webinar on June 8, 2023 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET to discuss new resources from Youth Thrive which organizations can use to help young people build their protective and promotive factors. Participants will learn about resources such as new graphics and animated videos, a practice blueprint with many tools and guides, an interactive professional development workshop for staff on social connections, and an instructional video on the Youth Thrive Self-Assessment Survey.

The issue of opportunity youths—young adults who are neither in school nor working—has been pervasive over the past few decades, although the problem grew more severe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first article in a two-part series from the Federal Reserve Bank noted how the rate of young adult disconnection ebbs and flows with business cycles as these adults choose to enroll in school or grapple with the realities of the labor market. This second article  illustrates how several demographic groups have differed in their response to business cycles over time and how their disconnection rates have changed in recent years. The inability to reengage these young adults may aggravate economic issues already gaining attention, such as declining enrollment in higher education and languishing labor force participation.

All along the journey from youth to young adulthood, there are critical junctures at which a change in pathway can have a tremendous impact on a young person’s future. This Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce report identifies 10 pathway changes with the greatest potential to improve employment outcomes for young adults. It uses the Pathways-to-Career policy simulation model to identify promising junctures at which strategic interventions could increase the likelihood of working in a good job.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration will host the third webinar in a series focused on trauma, healing-centered care, and the public workforce system on May 30, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. This webinar will provide an overview of healing-centered care and its importance for fostering a supportive and caring environment for youth program participants and workforce staff. Healing-centered care is a strengths-based approach to working with youth that acknowledges the trauma of an individual without defining them by their experiences. Webinar presenters will also share best practices for applying this knowledge to service delivery to better support youth program participants on their healing and their mental health.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation launched the Generation Work initiative in 2016 to connect more of America’s young adults—especially those of color from low-income families—with meaningful employment by changing the way public and private systems prepare them for and support them in jobs. Generation Work asked grantees to form partnerships of organizations in workforce development systems (such as training programs, government agencies, funders, employers, and trade unions) to better serve young people ages 18 to 29 years. The first phase of the initiative was implemented in five cities: Cleveland, Hartford, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and Seattle. MDRC was selected by the Casey Foundation to study the Generation Work initiative and investigate how it unfolded, uncover challenges, and identify best practices. This Issue Focus explores some of the ways Generation Work partnerships sought to change their local workforce development systems and previews some of the study’s findings.

Disconnected youths (often referred to as “opportunity youth”) are young people who are neither in school nor working, missing opportunities to both earn and learn. They are also more likely to suffer from challenges in adulthood such as lower lifetime earnings, a greater chance of unemployment, and poorer health. Disconnection therefore affects labor force productivity in the long run. This means helping these youths return to work or school provides short- and long-term benefits for them and their potential employers alike. This first article of a two-part series from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas shows findings that the sharp rise in disconnected young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic is the exacerbation of a problem that has gradually worsened in the past two decades. While attention was paid to decreases in school enrollment during the pandemic, identifying long-term solutions to both employment and enrollment are important to reduce disconnection among young adults.

Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)™ is an Annie E. Casey Foundation initiative which creates supportive career and education pathways for youth, ages 14–25, who have experienced foster care, criminal justice system involvement, or homelessness. This webpage discusses how participants in the 2023 National LEAP Convening reflected on their collective work in three areas: LEAP’s support of education and career trajectories for young people who have experienced public systems; how strategic partnerships with public systems can promote and expand the reach of equitable career and education pathways; and the role of young adults in cultivating equitable pathways to school and work. Key takeaways from the convening reflect the following lessons: youth engagement is essential, scale strategies for today and tomorrow, and embrace innovative partnerships.

One in 30 youths, ages 13 to 24, and 1 in 10 young adults, ages 18 to 25, experience some form of homelessness over the course of a year. These youth face instability and trauma during an important developmental period which limits their growth and creates costly effects for them and the communities in which they live. This brief is the first in a series highlighting challenges and opportunities facing youth, ages 14 through 24, as part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Thrive by 25® efforts. The brief analyzes youth homelessness and offers recommendations for how systems can make certain every young person has a place to call home - a safe and secure place to prepare for adulthood.