Calling youth unemployment New York’s most serious social problem, the state’s Board of Regents has outlined a number of steps the public and private sectors can take to better prepare young people for work.
The Regents’ proposals, based on a year-long study of the youth-unemployment problem in the state, included greater business and community involvement in the schools; more after-school vocational programs; and a greater emphasis on basic reading and mathematics skills to ensure that students are minimally qualified to find and hold jobs.
The study noted that 454,000 young people in New York--15.5 percent of all residents between the ages of 16 and 24--were unemployed and not in school during 1980.
According to the study, white youths between the ages of 16 and 19 had an 18-percent jobless rate in that year, while the figure for minorities was 39 percent.--T.T.
