The slow job market has left tens of thousands of Washington young adults unable to land their first job, a critical milestone for effective transition to adulthood, according to a report from the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board.

The report, “Wanted: Work Experience for Young Adults,” offers a look at Washington’s young people aged 18 to 24 and identifies the importance of early work experience in shaping future success.

With more than 75,000 young adults who are neither attending school nor working, Washington faces a potential cliff when the economy recovers. This generation of youth “will jostle with each succeeding graduating class to find their place in the economy,” and will face increasing difficulty finding a job with each year that passes without a foothold in the labor force.

The unemployment rate for young adults was more than 22 percent in early 2010, more than twice the rate of adults 25 to 65 years old, which was 10 percent.