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The US, which employs cooldowns, has been chanting the cold weather in the teen summer job market that has been getting hot for the past few years.
Few teenagers are looking for jobs. And the share of people watching is getting smaller.
This development appears to reflect the end of the post-pandemic employment frenzy that provided the most lucrative landscape of teen summer job hunters in over 50 years.
“When we see youth unemployment before the pandemic, that’s most of what we’re heading,” said Alicia Sasser Modestino, a labor economist at Northeastern University who studies teenage employment.
Is it difficult for teens to get jobs now?
The teenagers are expected to attract 1 million jobs in May, June and July. This is the lowest tally since 2010, and the lowest tally since 2010, according to Gray & Christmas estimates.
Among other factors, experts point to the slower US labor markets in general and the economic uncertainty created by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and automation.
On Thursday, the Labor Bureau is expected to report that the profits from the lukewarm 113,000 jobs in June will be reduced from 139,000 the previous month.
According to Gusto, a pay processor for small businesses, small businesses are causing healthy share of teenagers for summer jobs. 19% of new client recruitment in May were 15-19 years old, similar to 18.3% in 2023 and 19.1% in May 2024.
However, total employment in that age group increased 11.8% from the previous year, compared to an annual increase of 14.3% in May 2024.
“Companies that rely on teens still hire teens,” said Nich Tremper, senior economist at Gusto. “However, a decline in employment rates will have an impact on the economy as a whole.”
Labor sector data reveals a more dramatic decline in teen employment.
What percentage of teenagers do summer work?
According to non-seasonally adjusted figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment among 16-19 years old has decreased from 37.4%, prior to 37.4% to 35.4%.
Marquise Shiemvs, manager of Chip City, a cookie shop in Arlington, Virginia, said that most of the shop’s seven employees are high school students, but finding them has become even tougher.
Unlike previous years, “They haven’t really come into the application,” Shiemvs said. Instead, the shop recruited one or two teenage customers to join the staff.
Young people looking for jobs are struggling. Teen unemployment rate rose to 13.1% from 12.1% the previous year last month, marking the highest May since 2020. Historically, the unemployment rate has been at 4.2%.
Last month, about 5.5 million teens were employed, with the lowest number of May counted since 2022.
For decades, summer jobs served as a ritual for passing, with 55% of teenagers working or getting a job in May 1979. Stocks fell from 32% to 34% until the 2010s as many teens worked as Bolster to participate in school activities, bolster university resumes, and to get stolen workers’ resumes.
How has Covid-19 affected employment?
Covid-19 has changed everything.
As the economy reopened in 2021, restaurants, hotels, shops and amusement parks, irritated by pandemic-related workforce shortages, have transformed into young people to fill the plentiful openings and increase consumer demand.
High school and university students are stuck at home during Covid-19 closures. They were also attracted by surges in pay as companies scrambled to attract rare job seekers, especially for their face-to-face roles. According to a 12-month average calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the median annual wage growth between 16 and 24 years of age rose from about 8% in the summer of 2020 to 13% in the summer of 2022.
In May 2021, teen unemployment rates fell to 9.5%, the lowest since 1953, hovering near 10%, the next two summers, historically low. By May 2024, the teenager share reached 37.4%, the highest since 2009.
For teens, summer work teaches soft skills such as “how to work, as well as how to work.” “Just appear on time and navigate deals with colleagues.”
“These short-term benefits over the summer are linked to long-term reductions in criminal justice involvement, improved high school graduation rates, and increased employment and wages four years later.”
However, several factors have combined to curb teenage employment.
Soft economy and job market
Last year, businesses retreated to hiring widely as the Covid Post 19 spike in demand declined, but labor costs and interest rates remained high. Trump’s tariffs have strengthened this year’s decline as business uncertainty around potential costs over the coming months.
Average monthly employment growth has declined to 124,000 from 168,000 this year in 2024.
Meanwhile, consumer sentiment has generally plunged in as Americans worry about a revival of tariff-related inflation, despite partial rebound in June. U.S. household expenditures, particularly for discretionary services such as travel and hospitality, added in a research note last week that many foreign visitors are also eschewing the US because of import fees. Such sectors typically employ many teenagers in the summer.
In May, consumer spending fell 0.3% after adjusting for inflation, airfares fell 1.1% and recreational services 0.6%, with a rise of 0.1% for hotel stays, according to Commerce Department figures released last week.
“The teens are at the forefront of the cooling labor market,” Modestino said. “The teens were hired last and fired first.”
Before the health crisis, the unemployment rate for teens appeared at around 13% compared to 3.6% for all workers.
Recent competition with university graduates and adult workers
With employment slowing significantly, teens are competing for summer jobs along with recent college graduates and seniors, Tremper and Modestino said. Businesses are still hesitant to fire workers due to the pandemic’s labor shortage, but those who have been cut or are in the workforce will take time to find a position.
The number of 20-24-year-olds who are long-term unemployed (failed for at least six months) during the first four months of the year is up 32% compared to the same period in 2019.
automation
Retailers are deploying more self-service checkout registers and other technologies, offering fewer opportunities for teens, Modestino said. She said artificial intelligence has not yet made a major sacrifice, but it will be possible in the next few years.
Immigrants
Immigration is declining amid the massive deportation of immigrants who lack permanent legal status. Under Biden’s management policy, net immigration to the United States has skyrocketed to 2.6 million in 2022, 3.3 million in 2023, 3.3 million in 2023, and 2.8 million in 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This is comparable to the average annual average of around 900,000 from 2010 to 2019.
However, by the fourth quarter, the total is expected to plummet to an annual rate of 500,000, according to Oxford Economics.
In theory, it should mean less competition for teenagers for restaurants, hotels and other hospitality jobs that some immigrants make up.
But Oxford says it takes time for foreigners these days to find work. For now, labor supply is still being boosted by a surge in immigration over the past few years, the research firm said.
Some analysts said there was a mix of immigration impacts on the teen summer job market. In other ways, recent immigrants from Latin American countries seeking restaurant and hospitality jobs have been lowered due to the administration’s migrant attacks, Modestino said. The Hispanic teenage workforce participation rate was 32.4% in May, down from 35.7% the previous year, she said.
However, a 2022 study by the Journal of Population Economics found that as arrests for Hispanic immigrants increase, workforce participation declines among Hispanic adults, but sharply rises among US-born teenagers seeking to replace some of their income.
“The rise in rhetoric against immigration and the recent actions of ice could lead to a surge in teenage jobs in this population this summer,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger and Christmas.
