http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/02/teen-u ... labor.html

Economy
Teenage Jobs Wasteland


Joshua Zumbrun, 07.02.09, 03:45 PM EDT

Not since 1965 has it been so hard for teens to get work.


WASHINGTON -- Think an unemployment rate of 9.5% is bad? It could be worse. You could be a teenager.

For teenagers, the summer job market has not been so bleak in generations. During what should be the start of the bustling summer job season, the unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds who want work is 24%--the worst since 1965.

The outlook for teen jobs is so bleak that it's weighing down the entire employment report, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on Thursday. The country is headed for an entire decade with no job growth. In June, the report showed unemployment climbed to 9.6% from 9.5%, and 467,000 jobs were lost, thanks in large part to the decline in jobs for teens. (See "The Job Market's Grim Picture.") http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/02/jobs-u ... -jobs.html

"The biggest problem [in the report] was that the summer job market for teenagers was nonexistent," says Joel Naroff, of Naroff Economic Advisors, in a note. "The 24% unemployment rate for this group was the second-highest since the end of World War II. While teenagers comprise only 4% of the workforce, they made up over 22% of the increase in unemployment in June."

In June, there were 5.6 million jobs for teenagers, down from 6.3 million a year ago, and nowhere near the level of the late 1990s, the golden age for teen employment. In July of 1999, there were a record 8.8 million working teens.

"The economy has, of course, been bad for the restaurants and retail stores in which many teens work, but more is at play," says Kristen Lopez Eastlick, senior research analyst for the Employment Policies Institute. "The general unemployment rate is so much higher that your hiring market is going to be represented with more experienced workers. Your unskilled worker, like your teen, can end up in competition with experienced applicants."

The recovery following the dot-com bubble in 2001 is often called the "jobless recovery" because although the economy was growing, the labor market remained in bad shape. That meant more experienced workers crowded teens out of entry-level jobs throughout the decade, a trend that has accelerated because of recession.

But Lopez Eastlick says there is another major factor: rising minimum wage requirements. Minimum wage increases raise the bar for entry-level employment. From 1997 until 2007, the minimum wage stood at $5.15. Congress raised it to $5.85 in 2007, to $6.55 last year, and in July it is scheduled to increase again to $7.25.

In June 2006, 7 million teens were working. Since the wage hikes and recession kicked in, 1.4 million of those jobs have disappeared. For African-American teens, the job market is even worse--their unemployment rate is 38%.

"For teens who are not in the work force, as many as 10 years later there are financial impacts to that. Ten years later, if you were not employed, you're lagging behind your peers," says Lopez Eastlick. "There's an invisible curriculum you learn from having a job."

For many teens, that curriculum will have to wait for summers when the recession is long gone.
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COMMENTS

Comments for Comments 1-7 of 7
Teenage Jobs Wasteland
Joshua Zumbrun
Not since 1965 has it been so hard for teens to get work.

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Posted by USAmerican | 07/03/09 03:59 PM EDT
Why is Forbes even worried about teen unemployement, after all they have helped to create this situation by supporting illegal aliens taking jobs from Americans. Bunch of damn traitors is what Forbes is.
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Posted by 24AheadDotCom | 07/03/09 12:05 PM EDT
Oddly enough, Joshua Zumbrun completely failed to discuss the role that a huge number of illegal aliens play in high teen unemployment, despite there being people who study that very topic (search for Andrew Sum).

If anyone would like to actually do something about this, organize efforts to have someone go ask a political leader about these issues. Here's one question concerning the stimulus and illegal aliens taking jobs from Americans:

http://tinyurl.com/cjk6vk
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Posted by Tom_in_GA | 07/03/09 11:57 AM EDT
To Hugster: Can't be done because of discrimination laws - would immediately be tossed by the Supremes. I sympathize with how difficult it is to live on minimum wage but businesses cannot pay people more than they are worth. A company paying $7 an hour for work that is really worth $4 an hour won't stay in business.

To waynecr: Congratulations to your kids. I am a two-year college professor in Georgia and I hear plenty of stories from my students about the poor job market. For many individuals under 25, the hours they need are not there.
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Posted by peterike | 07/03/09 11:34 AM EDT
The latest June employment report actually has African-American teen unemployment at 45%.

Another element not discussed is the number of entry level jobs held by illegals. There are still millions and millions of illegals taking jobs that could easily go to American teens, not to mention out of work American adults.
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Posted by politicalcalcs | 07/03/09 11:13 AM EDT
The employment numbers are off in the article. Jobs held by teens did indeed peak in June 2006, but at 6,244,000 (not 7 million). The number of jobs held by those Age 16-19 has declined by nearly 1.25 million (not 1.4 million) since then to just under 5 million (4,999,000) as of June 2009. [ Ref: http://bit.ly/z6Mr9 ] If it helps though, the combination of minimum wage hikes and the current recession are indeed responsible for the loss of teen jobs. Interestingly, all of the teen job loss in 2007 may be attributed to the minimum wage hike of that year. [ Ref: http://bit.ly/wrpVW - note, this is the last post of a fun series of posts investigating the topic. ]
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Posted by Hugster | 07/02/09 11:44 PM EDT
Maybe we could have a slightly lower (5-10%) minimum wage for persons under 21. Try living on the minimum wage for a year (or even a month) and then try to make an argument against raising it.
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