In times of economic recession, dollars for job training and job placement programs grow scarcer, and those that are available tend to go to middle-class workers who are displaced or temporarily unemployed. The structurally unemployed--primarily the poor, the less educated, and minority youth--find it harder to compete for the needed training, and their situation becomes even more desperate than it is in times of recovery or economic growth. Common sense, equity, and efficiency would argue for exactly the opposite approach, beginning earliest with jobs targeted on areas and groups with the most severe problems. Youth programs should be first, not last, on the agenda; and among youth programs, those combining work, education, and training for the most disadvantaged, rather than conservation experiences for the most advantaged, should receive first priority. For the 1980s, a youth job strategy with the following elements should be implemented: (1) the use of Job Corps programs, which have been proven successful, in high technology training for youth; (2) a public service career intern program; (3) community improvement ventures; (4) entitlement projects similar to the successful Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects models; (5) the development of youth community service projects; (6) expanded summer programs; and (7) the expansion of the Conservation Corps. These proposed youth jobs programs all have education and training components built in from the outset. They can be used in concert with the Job Training Partnership Act, and they will help avoid the jobs programs mistakes of the past. (KC)