This study1 involves a detailed analysis of the employment histories of a random sample of the residents of Meriden between the ages of 14 and 30 years as of January 1, 1934. The data were obtained from an educa tional census taken by C.W.A. workers from December 1933 to Febru ary 1934. The results are not presented with any degree of confidence in their factual significance, which is precluded by the small number of cases, but with the hope that an exploratory method of analysis may be of in terest for subsequent investigators. The careers of a group of young people are followed through, year by year, from the point when they be came available for employment to the date of the survey ; the initial period of unemployment before getting a first job, the length of the first period of continuous employment, the subsequent periods of unemployment, and shifting from job to job until relative occupational stability was obtained, are analyzed and related to the amount of schooling and other factors. Summary.?The impact of the depression upon the young people of Meriden is shown by the lengthening period of initial unemployment. At the time of the survey no less than 40 percent of the young men becoming available for work between 1930 and 1933 had not obtained work within a year of becoming available, whereas only 18 percent of the group be coming available in the preceding 7 years had failed to find work within a year. The effect of the depression is still further shown by the increas ing frequency and amount of unemployment : 75 percent of those becom ing available from 1930 to 1933 experienced one or more periods of un employment as contrasted with 59 percent of those from 1923 to 1929. Sixty-five percent of the men becoming available from 1923 to 1926 were employed throughout their first three years of availability, but only 52 percent of those from 1927 to 1930. Before 1930, the men with higher edu cation had experienced greater stability of employment than had those with less education. Nearly all high school graduates found employment immediately, as contrasted with about 69 percent of those with not more than grammar school education and about 76 percent of those who had