The poor U.S. job market could have a lasting effect on Millennials now graduating from college, as "generational attitudes are being formed about work, security and even family, particularly among people younger than 25 who have entered the job market since 2008," according to USA Today:
The national unemployment rate rose to 8.2% in May as [recent grad Megan] Silsby was graduating as one of 2.6 million who got bachelor's, master's or doctoral degrees in the school year now ending. The non-partisan Economic Policy Institute called their labor market "grim" and said that over the previous year, unemployment among college graduates younger than 25 had averaged 9.4%, with an additional 19.1% in jobs for which they were overqualified.
Beneath this cascade of sobering statistics, a new pragmatism might be forming. …
Social scientists say these young adults are a lot like the Americans who came of age in the early 1930s, both in the economic upheaval they confront and in the attitudes toward success, contentment and risk aversion that they are forming. ...
Their pessimism is based on the experience of the 20-somethings just ahead of them. A Rutgers University study this spring of 444 graduates who received bachelor's degrees from 2006 to 2011 found that 51% were working full time. The rest were in graduate school, unemployed, working part time or no longer in the job market.