One of the most pressing questions facing researchers and policy makers today is how economic restructuring has affected the nature of work and mobility in the United States. Emerging research has begun to focus on analyses of longitudinal datasets, taking up such questions as whether wage growth has deteriorated and whether the rate of job changing has increased. A study compared two cohorts of young men from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The original cohort entered the labor market in the late 1960s at the tail of the economic boom and was followed through the 70s decade; the recent cohort entered the labor market in the early 1980s after the onset of economic restructuring and was followed through the early 90s. The research design observed both cohorts for 16 years at exactly the same ages--respondents were in their late teens and early 20s at the start of the survey and in their mid-30s by the end. Findings indicated that, in recent years, young workers' transition to the labor market has become more volatile and is also taking longer. Job instability has increased for young workers during the 1980s and early 1990s. As a result of this higher job instability, youth in recent years have worked for more employers and have shorter tenures with one employer. The recent cohort has failed to capture the all-important wage gains from early job searching, while at the same time experiencing greater inequality in those gains. The upshot is declining wage mobility and more unequal wage mobility. (YLB)