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The Department of Labor last Friday released a dismal jobs report for the month of June that offered little hope for a quick recovery from the Great Recession. The nation’s unemployment rate continues to hover around 9 percent. But the numbers mask an even more painful picture for women, youth, and minorities. Of the 378,000 government jobs lost since the so-called recovery began, 72% were held by women: many of them teachers, nurses and home health care workers. Young people have also been hard hit. Those between the ages of 16 and 19, are suffering from a greater than 24 percent unemployment rate. For Black youth in the same age range, the numbers top 40 percent. Before the 2008 meltdown, summer jobs were a “rite of passage” for young people, an opportunity to ‘beef-up’ their resumes with real-world experience. But our guest, Jamilah King, who writes about labor, gender and youth issues for the Nation.com, ColorLines.com and other outlets, says summer jobs have become an “urgent necessity” for young people who need the work to pay school costs and supplement family incomes. King says that more than 1.6 million graduates are in “deep stress,” burdened by hefty school loans with little available except for unpaid internships or very low paying jobs. Many of the jobs that are available to young people are in the image-conscious service and retail industries that require conformity in looks and behavior, making young workers, according to King, “more vulnerable than ever to the biases of their employers.”

GUEST: Jamilah King is the news editor at Colorlines.com.

Read Jamilah King’s blog at http://colorlines.com/archives/author/jamilah-king/