ABSTRACT
The jobs that young people hold in their early years in the labor market, during the moratorium stage, are usually casual and unskilled— jobs that some economists call secondary. In descriptive terms secondary jobs can best be understood by contrasting them with primary jobs. Primary jobs tend to have strong internal labor markets and offer opportunities for training and for stable employment. The reluctance of primary firms to hire young workers plays a central role in shaping the youth labor market because it forces youth into the secondary sector where their natural tendencies toward unstable behavior are reinforced. The staggering unemployment rates of black teenagers and the racial differentials in these rates obviously require a separate analysis of the labor market problems of black youth. When young people leave high school and enter the labor market, they are generally not at once in a state of mind to be stable, reliable full-time employees.
