Watch any teen movie from the 1980s and it’s likely to include scenes with high school kids working summer jobs: at pizza parlors, mall kiosks, or movie theaters. Today, not so much. The imagery simply wouldn’t resonate with many teens today.
That’s because not nearly as many teens work summer jobs as they did decades ago. This May, 35.4% of the nation’s 16- to 19-year-olds were working or looking for jobs, down from 37.4% a year earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a far cry from July 1979, when the teen employment rate peaked at 59.9%.
Several factors are getting in the way of summer jobs for teens, say experts. Teens face competition from recent college graduates, who are also confronting a tough labor market; automation, which diminishes the need for some entry-level workers; and broad economic uncertainty, which keeps employers from hiring. Also, some teens feel pressure to pad their college applications with activities other than a paying job, like non-paying internships, volunteer gigs, and extracurriculars, according to teachers.
But teens miss out when they don’t work in the summer, say educators.
“A summer job teaches students invaluable life skills,” said Tony Cattani, the principal of Lenape High School in Medford, N.J. “It helps them learn responsibility, time management, and the importance of showing up and following through. These are skills that will serve them not just in future jobs, but in college, relationships, and adult life. It also gives students a taste of financial independence.
“Ideally,” he continued, “students can find flexible, part-time summer jobs that allow them to build responsibility while still enjoying their time away from school.”
Cattani and other high school administrators, aware of the benefits that summer jobs can bring to teens, are taking an active role to help students attain them.
High schools are hosting job fairs
The Lenape regional high school district began hosting annual summer job fairs in 2011 exclusively for its high school students. This year’s event, held on March 13 at Lenape High School, brought an estimated 30 employers to campus, ranging from national companies Wawa, Wegmans, and Chick-fil-A, as well as a number of local employers, from garden centers to day camps. It also attracted lots of teen job seekers.
The estimated 500 to 750 students who attended this year’s event came well-prepared, said Cattani, thanks to the support offered by the school’s business department staff.
For two weeks leading up to the event, the department held open prep sessions during lunch periods, where students could get advice on how to identify the best job opportunities, appropriate interview attire, introductions and interview questions, and strategies to follow up safter the interview.
The school doesn’t collect data on how many students landed summer work through the job fair, but employers who attended the job fair were actively seeking employees, Cattani said.
Partnering with local organizations
Mary Pat Cumming, principal at the FAIR High School in Minneapolis, estimates that about 80% of rising 11th and 12th graders and 50% of 9th and 10th graders are employed this summer, well above the national average.
Cumming said about 50 of the school’s 320 students find summer employment through the school’s partnership with Achieve Twin Cities, a local charitable organization that provides on-campus career and college readiness programs for high school students in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul areas. Achieve Twin Cities’ employment program, Step Up, connects teens as young as 14 to mentorship and paid summer internship experiences.
By helping primarily students of color, those who would be the first to go to college, and those from low-income households attain paid work, Achieve Twin Cities’ Step Up program helps participants buck national employment trends. Teens from high-income families (earning $150,000 or more) are nearly twice as likely to be employed during the summer than their peers from low-income families earning less than $30,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.
Students at FAIR High, who are mostly students of color, benefit by having access to the school’s counseling team as well as a second support system that professionals from Achieve Minneapolis provide, Cumming said.
“Getting that first job is often nerve-wracking for our young people. They don’t really know how to interview or fill out a job application,” Cumming said. “But with the adult support, once they’ve been able to do it once, they’ll be able to figure it out more easily as they move forward.”
Student work opportunities: central to this principal’s mission
Pierre Orbe, the principal at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx neighborhood of New York and the state’s 2025 principal of the year, has made creating student work opportunities central to his mission since 2017, when he arrived at the school and heard first-hand from students that earning money was a priority for them.
He’s been able to make good on that promise, thanks in large part to the school’s strong relationship with New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program, the nation’s largest youth employment program that connects teens with opportunities for paid summer work experiences.
He estimates that approximately 200 students, mainly rising 11th and 12th graders, have obtained summer jobs through the program, whose employee partners range widely, from Five Below to the New York Botanical Garden.
Further, the school hires an additional 10 to 15 students directly from its own budget to work in the summer on campus, in roles that range from custodial and facilities management to reading programs for younger students in the district.
There’s an academic tie-in, too. For students reading below grade level, the school promises to connect them to summer jobs through the Summer Youth Employment program—if the teens commit to attending an on-campus literacy intervention program during the summer months. The program is currently offered to rising 10th graders.
“Summer jobs instill accountability, confidence, and a sense of belonging,” Orbe said. “When students see a link between what they learn and who they can become, they’re more likely to show up, stay engaged, and invest in their future.”
