PBS NewsHour | Gen Z reverses decades-long decline in teen employment | Season 2024

AMNA NAWAZ: Today’s job report showed an unexpected surge in hiring last month.

The leisure and hospitality sector has been growing at a steady clip and added over 42000 jobs, an encouraging prospect for teenagers who are looking for a job this summer.

And teen jobs overall have been making a comeback.

After a decades-long decline that began in the early 2000s, Gen Z is reversing the trend.

The percentage of 16-to-19-year-olds who had a job or were looking for one hit a high of 38 percent in May.

To discuss the rise in teenage employment, I’m joined now by Alicia Modestino, associate professor at Northeastern University in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs.

Welcome, and thanks for joining us.

ALICIA SASSER MODESTINO, Associate Professor, Northeastern University:Thanks for having me.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, other than a dip in the pandemic, teen employment rates have kind of been increasing incrementally since 2013.

But this 38 percent figure is something we haven’t seen since 2009.

What’s behind that?

ALICIA SASSER MODESTINO: Yes, exactly.

So we have been seeing, as we’re coming out of the pandemic, an increase every summer, in particular, among teens aged 16 to 19, where their labor force participation, so going out looking for a job, getting hired, has been increasing every summer as we’re recovering from the pandemic.

And so we’re seeing rates around 38 percent, as you mentioned, which are 4 percentage points higher, even than what we saw prior to the pandemic.

And so this really is evidence of the strong hiring demand that we have seen coming out of the pandemic, as well as adults moving into other jobs, freeing up those entry-level positions for younger workers.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, strong hiring demand on one side, but, among teens, are these folks who are joining the labor market for summer jobs and summer cash or more out of necessity?

ALICIA SASSER MODESTINO: Well, it’s really a combination of both.

And so we have seen entry-level wages in these jobs are rising.

That makes them more attractive to young people who are willing to jump off the sidelines and come into the labor market.

At the same time, we have to be honest about the inflationary pressures that we have seen on households, particularly low-income households, where youth — low-income youth are contributing to those households paying for household bills like rent, utilities, groceries, and all sorts of other expenses.

At the same time, these opportunities have gotten a little bit better.

So it’s not just dishing out ice cream cones at the local place, but it’s also more managerial positions, more positions with responsibility and more interesting kinds of jobs than we have seen in the past.

AMNA NAWAZ: For context, I want to point out here that these rates are not close to the teen employment rates that we saw among boomers or among Gen X’ers when they were in their teens, as high as 60 percent labor participation back then.

Do you think that we’re likely to see those numbers again with Gen Z?

ALICIA SASSER MODESTINO: I don’t think so.

So, back in the 1970s, 1980s, we were seeing labor force participation rates of around 50 percent.

And pretty much every wave of recession that we have seen since then, we see those rates drop because youth are typically the last to be hired, the first to be fired, but they have never quite recovered back to their pre-pandemic levels until now post-COVID.

The reasons why we have been seeing the steady decline in youth employment has been a couple of changes going on in the labor market.

So, first of all, a lot of the jobs that teenagers used to do have been automated or outsourced.

So think about your Blockbuster Video store.

We don’t have those anymore.

We’re all streaming our videos.

Or those automated grocery checkout lanes that annoy all of us, right, we don’t see teenagers staffing those anymore.

Or even if you look around your neighborhood, it’s mostly immigrant labor, right, who’s mowing lawns, instead of teenagers.

The second thing that’s happened is that employers have become more picky and also states have been regulating youth employment more.

So we see that you need to have not just a signature from your employer on your work permit, but also in some cases from your school, from a physician.

You can also work fewer hours.

And so that just makes other sources of labor more attractive to employers.

And then, finally, we have seen for youth who are in middle- and upper-income households, they’re doing a lot of other things, right, aside from working, that might look good on a college application.

So they’re volunteering, they’re traveling, they’re having pre-college experiences.

And so I don’t think we will quite get back to the levels that we saw in the ’70s and the ’80s, but I’m really encouraged by the opportunities that we have been seeing coming out of COVID so that at least we’re getting back to a position where youth who want to work and want to find a job can do so.

AMNA NAWAZ: You know, we’re approaching this through an economic lens here, but I wonder what this trend says to you socially, just about the world that Gen Z has been raised in and the one that they’re helping to shape.

How do you see that?

ALICIA SASSER MODESTINO: Well, I think there’s definitely been a bit of a backlash in terms of the college-for-all mentality.

So it’s great that we have young people going to college in record numbers, but those enrollment rates dipped during the pandemic for a couple different reasons, including financial constraints, but also a recognition that not everybody needs to go to college to have a good-paying job or even to contribute to society.

And so we have seen the rise of vocational technical education.

We have seen more apprenticeships.

And we have seen more teenagers coming out of high school and getting some job experience before they decide what they want to do for their careers.

And I think that combination of learn and earn is really a key trend that we’re going to see going into the future.

AMNA NAWAZ: It’s a fascinating insight and a look into who we are right now.

Alicia Modestino, associate professor from Northeastern University, thank you so much for your time.

ALICIA SASSER MODESTINO: Thanks for having me.