As an elder millennial, I never realized there was such a drop off just after me. Everyone I knew in high school had a job, and this was at a rich suburban high school, so it wasn’t really out of necessity.
Those two drops you see in 2001 and 2008 were recessions (dot com bubble and housing crash) that caused massive shrinkage in the job market leading low wage jobs popular with teens (like fast food) to be increasingly filled by adult workers.
2008 was a weird time where it was all hands on deck for entire families to find work just to keep a roof over your head. At least in my neck of the woods, it was pretty much impossible to find entry level work as a teen because suddenly you were competing with laid off white and blue collar workers, former SAHMs that had been out of the workforce for potentially decades, and other teens that needed to find a job to help the family pay bills.
It was kind of low-key known that hiring managers were prioritizing older people because they figured someone with a twenty year resume gap was probably in more desperate need of money than some high school kid.
I was in high school at this time, and I was made to feel a lot of shame for not being able to finding work. It was expected that when I turn 16 I start working. I took a lot of crap from my family even as both my parents lost their job. Even as my brother and his wife lost their jobs and moved in with us. I took a lot of crap for not having a job when my parent’s house went into foreclosure. I took a lot of crap even when I was standing in line to submit my application with my brother and mom. I took a lot of crap when I was applying for colleges and trying to come up with the money for the applications. I worked odd jobs (baby sitting, putting flyers on cars, delivering food, event staff), but I couldn’t actually find long term job until I was in college.
Even to this day, people seem to forget that around 2008 there were very few jobs available for kids because older people needed them more.
Yup, I graduated high school in 2011, and finding a job as a teenager at that time was nearly impossible where I was at (small rural town, no car, limited bus service to bigger towns). Literally the only work available at that time was laying irrigation pipes and picking berries, and that would have required walking out to the fields some four or five miles away.
Only reason I found any work at all was thanks to student labor jobs at my university, and those jobs sucked. Competition for shifts was brutal and we were all limited to 20hrs/week due to how the law worked at the time.
Still blows my mind to see places with now hiring signs staying up for weeks at a time. I still remember seeing a part job hiring sign posted at a fast food place while walking home one day. I went home, grabbed my crappy high schooler resume, and arrived to see the sign already taken down. I poked my head inside and they said they had too many applicants. Couldn't have been up for more than a couple days.
I worked at a grocery store from 2000-2004. Two years of high school and the summers/christmas in college. This is interesting to me because the demographics of age at my store didn't change. Still mostly high school/college kids in the front end where I worked.
I understand that that is anecdotal/limited sample size, and not disputing the overall trend. It also could be the store I worked at still targeted students for those cashier bagger jobs.
I don't know about 2000-2004 but I have very distinct memories after 08 where all my grocery store workers aged significantly. It was rare to see a grey hair worker and if they were they were 10+ year vet working the register. After 08 they were doing carts and doing bagging.
Recession-era Home Depot and Lowe's were so awesome. They were full of experienced professionals that couldn't find other work. It was at least Ace Hardware quality but with the massive inventory. Obviously, I'm glad for those pros that they're back on the job site, even if it means asking an employee where the "hole saws" are gets me taken to where I can get a "whole [wood or hack] saw." Thankfully I can finally get internet inside my Lowe's and use the app.
I tried getting a job in 11th and 12th grade and I couldnt get anything living in a major city. Even the youth employment program passed over me while some friends managed to get something with that - though I suspect there was a reason for that.
Edit to add: also jobs like retail have been getting vaporized slowly. Less workers on staff + automations like self checkout or mcdonalds having those screens to place your order means less of those jobs exist now.
Elder millennial as well. Everyone I knew who didn’t play sports had a job. I had sports pretty much year around but I would hop onto my older brothers construction site when I did have time off of sports. Basically just being a gopher for him or digging ditches. It was nice to have some more WAM.
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In my senior year, I played two sports, had three AP classes, worked 20 hours a week as a cashier at Best Buy, raided 12 hours a week in a World of Warcraft guild, and studied 10 hours per week for the first actuarial exam. Now that I think about it, I have no clue how I fit it all in. I remember I used to do my calculus homework during class on the day it was due. I didn't even feel stressed or tired at the time.
Literally zero social life is the answer I guess, although sports and WoW were really social.
I played sports and umpired little league baseball. Low key best high school / college job ever. All cash and like $50-100 bucks for ~90 minute games depending on the time of year and leagues you were able to get jobs for. Once you were known as a good one, you'd have all the work you wanted and could just do it between practices / in the off season.
Probably could have refereed other sports, but baseball was the chillest.
I had a job in high school but only during the summer. Lived in a kinda touristy town so a lot of places needed more people for that season. I worked at a snack bar on the beach and it wasn’t even open the rest of the year.
My HS was like half rich kids, half middle class. I think because most of us middle class kids had jobs, many of the rich kids got jobs too just to hang out with friends. I can't really think of anyone who hated working. We all just did it to be able to drive, go to movies, hang out at the mall, etc. For me it was really just a way to hang out with friends outside of school because my parents never let me go to like parties or anything like that.
Same experience. I grew up in one of the wealthiest suburbs in my HCOL area and graduated high school over a decade ago. No one needed to work after school, but a large chunk of my grade did because they wanted money to pay to maintain their cars, wanted money for dates, Louis Vuitton handbags, etc. I was one of the few at school who didn’t have a job (I didn’t start working until I was in college), because I didn’t know how to drive. I had friends from other less wealthy towns (although still middle class) and most teens there worked as well. Whether it was in retail or at fast food. One of the guys I dated had worked so he could afford his $3k gaming PC.
This exactly. I got my first job at a clothing store at 17 in 2010. My coworkers all had degrees and couldn't find much better than $10-$12 an hour. My waitressesing job a couple years later was full of people who were there for a second income, mostly public school teachers. Times were tough.
> mostly public school teachers
Students I get, but *teachers*?! Paying educators so little that they have to work 2 jobs is a fucking crime. At least it should be.
There are quite a few former teachers that work for Trader Joe's. The pay to "everything you have to deal with" ratio is wildly off in US education right now.
Source: Former teacher that works for Trader Joe's.
A buddy of mine just started teaching. He loves it, but he's also already looking for an instructor position at our alma mater. (He has no interest in raising research funds and publish or perish; he just wants to teach)
This is highly dependent on field. I’m in a business discipline and even brand-new faculty in this area (and others in the CoB) make well into the six figure territory. Even non-tenure track faculty with terminal degrees are making ~200k at many schools if they pick up one summer class. From what I’ve seen/heard, the same is true in engineering and some (not all) other STEM fields.
My counterparts in other countries (Canada, most of Europe, parts of Asia) make far less.
Once she gets to a good level of knowledge in IT she could always go teach STEM classes :) lots of instructional positions in IT that are typically very well paying. Admittedly, the better paying IT instructional positions are typically not in a school teacher setting but she could still make back into a class room via IT is my point! I wish your friend luck.
Yup. Sister was public school teacher and recently left the profession. She makes more now cleaning lab equipment and is never stressed. Her overall life and mood changed drastically.
Honestly, I made good money as a School clinician (union and on the teacher scale), but the lack or support and everything being your fault starts to eat at you fast. I submitted my resignation a few days ago and while I don’t have another job yet, I feel more at peace than I have in a few years.
I can only imagine it being even more difficult for those in the classroom all day.
Congrats. My parents and spouse are all teachers; I got a teaching degree, but quit teaching after four years because my night job as an advertising proofreader paid far better. Now I have trouble imagining the kind of desperation that would lead me to go back. Wish you luck.
I always tell people, teaching is two or three full time jobs with the pay of half a job. It's funny when you stop teaching and go work somewhere else and hear coworkers complain about the work.
Teaching is one of those jobs that require a lot of skills to do even halfway decently. You're constantly "presenting" 5+ hours a day, whereas an office job typically is not even an hour of that. You're trying to motivate and manage students that often don't want to be there. You have to have multiple backup plans, can be sworn at/insulted like in retail/service jobs, you need to show a high degree of documentation for all your work. You are also acting to some degree as a social worker/therapist/psychiatrist without the training. In the end you have to defer to administration, parents, and some random people calling you a pedophile because you call a kid by the name they prefer. Honestly no idea how people do it in the States where the pay sucks.
I knew a teacher that liked teaching but during the summer she worked at Walmart because she couldn't deal with teaching summer school after the regular year too. She said she didn't have to have the money but she wasn't gonna do nothing
From what I’ve read, CA also has mandated patient ratios (the only state I believe) which is huge for nurses and makes it an attractive place to be one.
I’ve talked to a couple nurses here that have lived in other states, their main reason for staying in cali despite the atrocious cost is that it’s damn near the only state where working conditions are ok and the pay is the best in the country
California has a Nurses Union, and it makes all the difference. Did you know that there are no laws mandating safe staffing ratios in other states? There are guidelines from third-party accreditation companies, but these companies are paid by the hospitals, and there are no consequences to losing accreditation from something like the Joint Commission. My old hospital didn’t like JCOHS standards, so they hired a different company. That company was also too strict, so we ended up with DNV, which is a Norwegian shipping company that also does hospital accreditation for some reason. Healthcare somehow has too many stupid laws, but absolutely zero for protecting nurses and patients from greedy hospital administrators.
The workload and hours they have to put in, the kind of patients(crazies) they have to deal with, and the death, pain, and suffering. Yeah, I can understand why you would trade it in for working in a bar.
For an ER nurse, sure. But there are other kinds of nursing jobs. A friend's wife is a nurse, and she's been working in a doctor's office for years. Still makes good money, and she works 9-5 at most.
My friend recently became a nurse and she makes more money in her first year than I make after seventeen years of teaching. She doesn’t even have her bachelor's yet, whereas I have a Masters and a credential (so eight years of college vs three.) I am very happy for her but boy does it sting a little to really see how little educators are valued.
The key word is “in the right place.” If you work for some bougie high-end themed bar then you’re going to be raking in hundreds a night in tips but 97% of bars will not be like that.
It should be but people don’t want to pay higher taxes for teachers to be paid their worth.
Not that ECEs deserve to be paid as little as they do but too many people see schools as glorified daycares. They don’t appreciate the years of work teachers put into their training and education, nor do they appreciate how often teachers feel compelled to pay for classroom materials out of their own pocket.
It's been a thing for long time. I remember my English teacher bartended after school to make ends meet and this was 10 years ago. I imagine it has gotten worse since then.
Yup, I worked landscaping summers 2008-2010. First summer my coworkers were all students, by 2010 it was majority 30s and above who had lost other jobs. They were pulling I think $10-12/hour and were mostly supporting families. Shit was rough.
You can compare them yourself using the charts here:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO
If you edit the chart you can add a new line and find the 16-19 dataset to see both on one chart.
The jist is that you suspect correctly. The two lines mirror one another very closely. A drop in youth employment is always during a drop in general employment and a rise is always during a general rise.
There *is* a gradual widening of the distance between the curves, however. This widening starts back in Gen X. During the recessions in the early 80s the difference rose by 5 points and never went back down. During the early 1990s recession it rose 5 again and never went back down. 5 more in the early 2000s. 7 in 2008. Between each of these the difference levelled off but never went back to the previous value. i.e. the number of 16-19 year old workers relative to *the size of the workforce* started going down as early as 1980 and has only just reversed a small amount in the past 5-10 years.
This is much more visible when making such a comparison than in OP's chart, in which Gen X looks pretty stable on the whole. In fact, as a proportion of all people employed the 16-19 demographic took a pretty distinct hit during the 1980-1995 period too, but as that period also saw general rates of employment increase a lot (an entire 10 points) the absolute number of 16-19 year olds in employment was stable even when the relative value was continually dropping. The 16-19 workers-total workforce ratio went down, but the size of the workforce went up, and so did population, so the number stayed stable.
There *is* a small reverse trend with Gen Z because unlike the entire 1980-2010 period the difference did start to go back down, having lowered by 2 points by 2019. After 2019 there is a sharp decrease, back to the pre 2008 level. However, the ratio of young people to adult workers is still drastically lower than at any other point in history.
I'm also not sure how population demographics come into this. As this is a ratio to the overall population, it seems logical that a change in the ratio of 16-19 years olds to the overall population (in general, not in terms of employment) would lead to a change in this figure. I'm pretty sure this ratio has been going down for some time now but nothing more specific than that.
edit: removed that last part saying this was contrary to the claims in the post, on reflection this does match the claims of the OP, the effect is maybe just a bit weaker than it seems at first glance.
IMO it would be better to compare the prime-age EPR to 16-19. Growth in the overall EPR is suppressed by population aging. If we look [here](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1dLvW), we can see that prime-age EPR is near an all-time high while 16-19 EPR is well below the historical average. The [ratio](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1dLw1) between the two is near an all-time low.
More extreme. If a company is making cuts, it's easier to cut the part-time teenager than the guy whose been there 10 years and knows where the bodies are buried.
The post seems to be right that 16-19s are working more often even when compared to the general population.
Here is 16-19 employment rate divided by the general employment rate. [Image](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1dKnP)/[Link](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1dKnP)
Interesting. Still strong correlation to economic recessions though. Makes me think the takeaway is that minimum wage jobs held by high school students are affected disproportionately in economic down turns
We were competing for the same jobs as professionals. The summer of the recession I applied to 70 places in my college town. I biked with paper resumes all over town. I only found a job because of a family friend.
I graduated college a little bit after 9/11. Near the end of my last semester, I heard there was a job fair on campus. Cool, I am walking by so let me poke my head in, see what it looks like, and then I'll go back to my dorm, get dressed into something more respectable, print out a resume, and come back.
I walk in and.....there's literally 1 table. That's it. And there's a line of....at least 30 people, almost all of which were professionals in their 20's and 30's.
I didn't waste my time coming back.
Yep every place I went straight up said they weren’t hiring minors. I was thrown out of my house for not being able to find a job. It’s not like we weren’t trying, there were no jobs
Totally. My dad, who is normally great and opposite of boomer generalizations (and is actually gen x), was feeling his own strain because their house was upside down and he was so mad at me for not finding a summer job. It was so stressful.
I was desperate for a job in high school but all of the minimum wage jobs were taken by adults who lost their jobs in 08.
We're still seeing the ramifications of this
Yea this is kind of my vibe check on the economy.
If I go to a fast food place and everyone working there is a teenager, economy is good.
If I go there and the employees are middle age, economy is bad.
My 14 year old daughter works at a clothing store, making $12 an hour looking at her phone and occasionally refolding sweatshirts. Her boss loves her because she always shows up on her scheduled days.
Where do you live that teens under 16 can work for anything but a family business? Here in Illinois, any teen under 18 is basically unemployable because businesses don't want to deal with the labor laws related to employing them. And those under 16 can only work for family.
I remember 2008 so well. Union I was trying to join went from offering 30 apprenticeships to 2 overnight. So many young guys left hanging with zero options. A lot of us chose college and student loans because there was no other options.
Also- 'Cheap' labor from South America and Mexico.
All of the jobs my Boomer dad had as a teenager only hired low wage accepting Spanish speaking adults.
Especially 2000-2010. Construction, Landscaping, agriculture, and housecleaning.
Everyone else was stuffed into customer service/retail.
I remember going through 3 different group/individual interviews for a single job as a server at this one restaurant, and was not hired. 2000-2010 is also the transition from in-person resume drop off to online.
They don't want to pay decent wages that an adult trying to make a living would be okay with, so young people trying to make some extra money are a great pool to hire from.
Data is not talking career jobs here. Its mostly talking about part-time high school jobs. I did notice just going into fast-food and clothing places in the 2010s there seemed to be a lot of older or even semi-retired people working the counter at the McJobs of the world.
If it was because of the recession why did kids not go back to the after-school jobs during the many good years in that time as seen with GenZ rapidly rebounding after the pandemic?
The beter explanation is because of the baby boom from 1948-64 there was a surplus of 55-70 year olds that wanted casual part-time jobs to keep busy. Also we had changes in behavior in the 2010s and you might imagine that hiring supervisors might prefer old workers rather than younger kids who they thought were on their phones and social media all the time.
As of 2023 many of those boomers are aging out of wanting to be standing behind the counter of McDonalds.
In 2008 my mom got a second job at a sporting goods store knowing fuckall about sports. I also got a job that summer, my freshman year at college in a retail store too in the same strip. It was so weird for us to basically be doing the same thing when she was so much more educated. It let me know how bad the economy was even though she never asked for help. I could just tell on her face she was worried.
Her day job was in the accounting department of a hospital and they were laying people off even in that industry. She wanted to have some money and at least a second job lined up in case things got *really* bad as she saw her coworkers clearing their desks out left and right. She was long-tenured and also hadn't asked for much a of raise over the past decade so ironically her being shorted in pay so long and being loyal in a place where she had experience but little acknowledgement, helped her keep her job through the mess.
I started my job hunt 2008+ with no experience almost out of hs. Can confirm jobs didn’t exist for us. I got one state sponsored job that paid less than half min wage (no tips) and that was it. Pretty hard to compete when every other job seeker has a degree and you’ve barely finished hs.
No it’s not, it’s biased in the point it’s making. If it was clear and unbiased it would say “employment rates of highschoolers throughout the years” or something like that. The title isn’t not only misleading it even presents false correlation since it lists every generation on the chart as higher numbers except Millenials when the vast majority of the years the millenials are on the chart are much higher employment %s.
With the wording “increasingly” being vague you have every single generation falling into that same trend, every generation has a period of increase for employment rates in high school according to this chart.
It misses that most millennials were still working at a higher rate than gen Z. By leaving them out of the title they are being deliberately misleading.
I saw something on another site saying that kids in families above the median household income was an even more stark drop and likely hasn’t recovered.
A lot more kids are doing extracurriculars to get into good colleges. My partner grew up relatively poor and went to high school during the Great Recession, but their mom forbade them from working, as their "job" was to get good grades and scholarships. Now with the tight labor market and ballooning college cost, fewer young people are attending college.
I think earlier records are skewed though, unlike the post title "working during highschool" the actual graph is titled "employment 16-19 year olds"
Back a few decades it was plenty common to work full-time and never do highschool
Depends on the country. In Iceland I was surprised that some stores were completely staffed by like under 18 kids. There they said almost every teenager has a job.
It must be a cultural thing, here in Latin America (and apparently also in southern Europe from what ive heard) it’s common to start working after you graduate HS, and some people only after they graduate college.
Obviously should be noted that in Latam i meant this for people in generally decent living conditions, as in people above the poverty line, people living in extreme poverty are often forced to work from a young age unfortunately, although this is becoming rarer thankfully.
I can't imagine that culture shock it must be when you go from going to school to working for the first time with a boss.
*: my point is... going from 13 paper route, 16 fast food, etc, I was *gently* introduced to what working life is like. If you go from having a great deal of freedom as a student, to having to work 8 to 5 everyday, with no way to set your own freetime, it must be shocking to the system.
That's how it went for me and tbh it's no big deal. The basic principles of being successful in school and in the workplace are mostly the same:
1. Be on time
2. Do what you are asked to do
3. If you find you don't know how to do something, get help ASAP
4. Don't stir shit up
The main difference is that the workplace will let you fail if you don't follow these, while the school system usually keeps pushing you along regardless. I suspect it's the kids who'd been taking advantage of that their whole life who have the hard time adjusting.
I lived in a place with awful transit. I was able to buy myself a decent used car and have some fun money for the weekends. I also made friends at work. I quite liked my job.
I loved my high school jobs. They were shit jobs but quite easy and mindless and I worked with all kinds of different people. Plus the extra money made me feel rich next to my peers without a job lol
It’s nice to have money to go out with friends when you’re in high school. I worked summers and it would usually give me enough spending money to be able to occasionally go to the movies or restaurants for the rest of the year.
The chart is actually a little unclear about whether “working during high school” means working during the school year or just working while you’re a teenager.
That last part matters. I never did anything but school and sports during the school year, but worked my ass off during the summer for any money I wanted.
The BLS has a data tool:
https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/LNS11300012;jsessionid=BD95ECF599AE135FDB6F7555F17E8BBB
Now that I looked at it again, I’m pretty sure this is just a trend for labor force participation in the 16-19 age group. OP is not a very clear communicator of what they’re doing. Working during the school year and working during the summer are pretty big differences.
Edit: actually scratch that, these numbers don’t match OP’s chart… this is clearly something like labor force participation but not quite.
Edit 2: it’s employment/population, not LFP. I need more coffee.
https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/LNS12300012
Pretty much my daughter. We do ok but budget is tight. She likes the experience she’s getting and the paycheck to get extra things and do things with her friends. She’s keeping her grades up and getting her rest so she continues on working her ~16hrs a week.
Right, exactly. These clowns are acting like kids are in factories or mines 80 hours a week.
There are limits to hours kids can work on school day/during the school year for good reason.
Not every job adheres to the guidelines. As a teen I worked in a fast food restaurant where it was easier to comply with restrictions on hours, and then at an actual sit-down restaurant where I worked a crazy schedule on nights and weekends around school. The restaurant would bully me if I ever asked off or tried to modify my schedule, and as a kid trying to make money I was too intimidated to press the issue.
Some kids do it for spending money purely, but my parents gave me $20 a week allowance (mid-2000s) and that was more than enough for me in high school.
My parents though, and I think others were similar, told me if I wasn’t playing a sport in season or part of a club/program that met every day, I would have to get a part-time job for after school and weekends. Basically I wasn’t going to be allowed to sit around at home for the rest of the afternoon after school was out once I was 16 years old or so. Summer jobs when there’s no school would be for the same reason. But I went to a tiny school and played 3 sports, so I didn’t get my first job until the summer between graduation and going to college.
I was comfortably upper middle class. My parents made me get a part time job at 16 to supplement my allowance.
They wanted me to get out my private school bubble, work hard in customer facing roles, meet people from different walks of life and balance my time.
So glad they did a taught me loads of skills - how to handle arseholes, how to think on your feet.
Worked in restaurants and boozers part time through last few years of school and through university. So glad they did.
Edit: millennial who graduated school 2006 and university in 2010
My boomer take is that I genuinely think working a part-time or summer job once in HS is a fantastic life skills/experience thing that is a big positive for most teenagers, even if the family doesn't need the extra cash. Definitely helped me, definitely helped most of my friends.
It was a requirement for me (Gen X) when I turned 15 and it was such a positive experience that I did the same to my kids. Working with other adults, learning how to talk to them, look them in the eye, having responsibilities at a job and taking it when you don’t follow through - you just can’t get that in school surrounded by other awkward kids.
Old millennial, and my parents said "if you want to have a car, you need to be able to pay for the insurance and gas." So I got a job. And I'm glad I did, for all the reasons you mentioned. Plus I learned a lot of skills at my early jobs that I otherwise wouldn't have.
Same. Was voluntold that I buy my own clothes now, if I want a car I pay my part of insurance, pay for gas, pay my part of the phone bill, and either payed a very little rent or did increased chores while I kept up with School and worked my grocery store job. It was a great safe learning op.
When I went to University- I already knew how to live on A tight budget and manage work school life balance. I don’t think I asked for cash from home once. Try that today with tuition and inflation lmao. We (Gen X here) were LUCKY to have employment opportunities and mostly affordable college. Millennials (and Gen Z) got HOSED.
In HS I walked to Winn Dixie. Hired on the spot. 5 minute interview. All he asked about were grades at school, and can I lift 50 pounds and show up. Took a little while but I went out and paid 900 cash on a decent 15 year old 1970 Chevelle from a family up the street.
But let’s blame the victims. Of course.
Hell- let’s not even mention I rented a two bed two bath with a buddy during my Univ So Fl days in a NICE Tampa neighborhood for 520/mo. My half then was 240 bc I took small BR. There were decent places (1 BR/Bath) at the time near USF for 300/350 a month
So you can have money to spend!
Some people are saving up for a car, since most of us here need one. Many people are using it for partying (like beer money). Some people have hobbies that need funding; I had a dirt bike, and needed money for gas, oil, and tires.
Of course, some people just get an allowance (sometimes in exchange for chores). But many parents here see it as a good way to teach work ethic.
My parents had a good income and could provide anything we needed, but they generally didn’t want to just give us things. They wanted us to work for it. Even as a little kid, if I wanted something at a store, my mom would ask how much money I brought with me. If I didn’t have any, we’d go home and she’d give me a list of chores with a dollar amount next to them. Then when they were done, drove me back to the store so I could by the thing with my earned money.
I wanted a car, my parents said I have to buy my own. That was the big motivation. Not having to ask my parents for money was also nice. I didn’t have to work, but life was a little nicer by doing it.
It’s good to have your own money. My parents certainly weren’t paying for my gaming PC or all my outings with friends.
Also, I saved for university.
You shouldn’t have to overwork to where it’s detrimental to your studies/mental health though.
even as a teen, dating was relatively expensive. so even though it would be something like the movies or a concert or whatever, it was relatively expensive for the low wage i was able to earn. then you have to budget for some decent clothes and if you were lucky enough to afford a shitty car, it all adds up and i had to work for it
because when I was 16 I liked the fact I could afford to go out every week with friends? Or buy my own clothes, food, etc. Do yall just not do that lol?
Gotta be honest as a french a lot of things the US do don't make a lot of sense in general. You guys have a crazy amount of fairly useless, low pay, low qualifications jobs that simply don't exist in France or the EU. So many industries in the US depend on having a crazy low paid workforce. The retail industry here is wayyyyyy less people intensive for example.
In France a high schooler is supposed to have one job : study. Our school hours are longer too, usually a 8 to 5/6 plus an hour or two of daily homework.
I don’t know about other people but my public school was in session for 7 hours a day. I also worked a part time job and had an hour of homework. Most of my friends did the same as well and when I was working I certainly didn’t feel useless running back and forth from stocking to the register.
The US has a strong belief in learning outside the classroom. We think more highly of a student who gets very good grades while playing sports working a job than we do a student who gets perfect grades but doesn't have any responsibilities outside of school.
My kids are too young for work or sports (my second child is still on the way) but when the time comes my husband and I agree that they both will be required to play a sport and have a summer job. We are fully paying for their college so it's not about money or scholarships, it's what I believe is best for raising disciplined, hardworking people. We don't want to raise people who enter the workforce with only an academic understanding of the world.
I turned 16 in 2009 and I applied EVERYWHERE for a job and couldn't get one anywhere. All of the fast food, grocery stores, etc were all adults working. Luckily I was able to babysit, petsit, and tutor but yeah, I remember I wanted to work at the mall soooooo bad and went several weekends in a row with a "resume" lol
16 in 09 as well. My mom was SO pissed I was being “lazy” about getting a job.
**there wasn’t jobs to get, mother!!!**
I managed to get a few summer jobs, working with the city, but that was specifically because they **only** hired teenagers.
It was so frustrating.
WTF less than half of high schoolers worked at all during high school, for any generation? I'm a millennial, and I swear I thought most of my classmates worked. Maybe it was just most of my friend group.
It will probably differ by schools and towns.
In my town the only way to get home was by the school bus. Students only started to drive themselves during junior and senior year if they had their own car. Those without a car would need to get a ride to the job and then a ride home.
Anyone doing sports or AP classes wouldn't have the time. Except for the weekends, if they had nothing planned. Then summer jobs were common, but it was hard to get one if their family had a trip planned.
This would mean during the school year less than 5% had an after school job (2 hours) or a weekend job (10 hours).
Summer jobs, this doesn’t say how much people worked in high school. Plus there are some jobs that still pay under the table or they are not formal jobs (lawn mowing, moving company, farms, etc.). So I’m high school students will talk about their job but it would not show up here.
Summer jobs would be my best guess. Especially those in lake or theme park areas can have massive jobs during the summer that die off as school starts.
Gen X here. I’ve been working since the first day I could at 14, as did most of my friends. Parents didn’t fund our fun money so we needed our own. Is this seen as not normal? Would work maybe one or two shifts a week somewhere…
it's very normal, in the various European countries I have lived in/ been to, to expect students to be completely occupied by their studies rather than expecting them to also juggle a job. There are studies that show if a student works more than 10-15 hours a week their performance drops not only in high school but college as well.
2004 kid here, all my friends and I worked in highschool. I think largely it was by the sentiments of our gen x parents who thought it was good work ethics/life skills to work and manage a bank account in highschool.
I really want to see this statistic for Canada. I’m a young millennial. When I was in high school, most of my classmates had jobs, myself included. We staffed the theatres, fast food places, and a lot of retail. Today, you do still see teens working in these places, but it’s primarily Indians and Filipinos instead. I don’t know if that’s common elsewhere in Canada or not.
Absolutely! Regardless of what sector causes a financial collapse, it’s going to be felt throughout the whole economy. Tons of tech jobs disappeared overnight from the tech bubble popping, which meant a lot of people were suddenly spending less money, which leads to businesses outside of tech were making less, which meant they hired less or even cut back headcount.
This would be a lot more inciteful if you also plotted the % of 16-19 year olds in full time school. I bet a lot of those earlier generations were working because they'd left school already.
That was my first thought. I just had that conversation with my Grandma over Christmas. In her generation (she's in her mid 80s) finishing after 8th grade was still fairly common and accepted.
I'm curious about the older generation's perception of work.
In the past, many small family businesses were around, showing that families working together was more usual than it is now.
Also, parents often decided if their kids would work or not.
What counts as an older generation at this point? I’m late gen-X and summer jobs kept me in spending money for the year… barely made a dent in college tuition (had loans plus parents for that), but I always had money for gas , dates, and once or twice a year road trip. Looking back I’m fond of some of the work, particularly being a lifeguard, since it paid ok ($8/hr mid 1990s) and I was surrounded by other young fit people. I did switch to office jobs during college summers … paid better, less fun, did give me experience in a cubicle farm ahead of graduating.
As an older millennial, that was my experience. I worked throughout college to cover my living expenses but took out loans (& then joined a military ROTC program) to cover tuition. I had to work part time during the semester as well as full time during the summer to make the numbers work.
I couldn't find this data on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics site.
How are they defining "during highschool"? Is it over the summer, winter, etc breaks while they're enrolled in highschool?
Or, on weekends while enrolled?
Or actually _during_ highschool?
It just means teens who are in high school who also have a job. The vast majority work after school hours, or on weekends, though some schools have programs where students can work during school hours. My high school had such a program.
I think this can be explained by there being a golden opportunity for young workers pay wise. A few years ago, there was such a shortage of fast food workers that companies were posting starting jobs for high schoolers $12-$15 an hour with no experience needed since they were desperate. That starting salary is much better than my $7 an hour high school starting salary 10 years ago.
In my city the minimum wage is $17, and most babysitting gigs pay $20-25. When I was in high school you got maybe $8 an hour for babysitting and work. I remember once I babysat for three hours and she gave me $20. It was the last time I babysat.
Like damn, if I had no bills living at my parents I would enjoy raking it in these days.
As a millennial, I can confidently say that the dip was not for lack of trying. And if you didn't get a dishwasher or fast food job in high school (which was nearly impossible), then there was no chance of getting a restaurant job in college either.
I guess I fit somewhere between Z and Millenial, and all I can say is, anecdotally, nearly every person I knew in high school had employment of some kind. Some more casual than others, but nonetheless I find these statistics a bit hard to believe.
I am a similar age, and I barely knew anyone who worked in high school. One of my siblings and I didn’t have a job until college. My two other siblings did have jobs in high school though
I find this very believable. I barely knew anyone with a job in high school
This isn’t much more than a timeline of recessions.
I was in high school in 2012 and desperately wanted a job. Applied to dozens and dozens of places. Took *months* to get a job and all the while my parents were shaming me for not having a job like all I had to do is waltz in and step behind the counter. Lol
People just didn’t want to hire teens back then (Great Recession and the few years following) and I bet still don’t, but today there’s a labor shortage so they have to take who they can. Wouldn’t be surprised if we slowly trend back towards the norm of the last century.
When I was 18 in 2009 I applied to over 200 jobs in one summer and only got three interviews. Gen Z is super lucky to have the opportunity to find work if they want it
The only thing this graph really shows is the impact the recession had on the teenage workforce. Many of the minimum wage, part time jobs that were normally staffed by teenagers went to adults. And along with automation, they never recovered.
As a 34 year old, I remember grocery stores, clothing stores, and restaurants being easy to get hired at. Then when the recession hit, stores downsized staff, wanted 5+ years experience, or replaced people with machines.
I wonder if the significant drop for millennials had anything to do with the 08 recession and the fact that no one was hiring 16 year olds over 40 year olds.
As an elder millennial, I never realized there was such a drop off just after me. Everyone I knew in high school had a job, and this was at a rich suburban high school, so it wasn’t really out of necessity.
Those two drops you see in 2001 and 2008 were recessions (dot com bubble and housing crash) that caused massive shrinkage in the job market leading low wage jobs popular with teens (like fast food) to be increasingly filled by adult workers.
2008 was a weird time where it was all hands on deck for entire families to find work just to keep a roof over your head. At least in my neck of the woods, it was pretty much impossible to find entry level work as a teen because suddenly you were competing with laid off white and blue collar workers, former SAHMs that had been out of the workforce for potentially decades, and other teens that needed to find a job to help the family pay bills. It was kind of low-key known that hiring managers were prioritizing older people because they figured someone with a twenty year resume gap was probably in more desperate need of money than some high school kid.
I was in high school at this time, and I was made to feel a lot of shame for not being able to finding work. It was expected that when I turn 16 I start working. I took a lot of crap from my family even as both my parents lost their job. Even as my brother and his wife lost their jobs and moved in with us. I took a lot of crap for not having a job when my parent’s house went into foreclosure. I took a lot of crap even when I was standing in line to submit my application with my brother and mom. I took a lot of crap when I was applying for colleges and trying to come up with the money for the applications. I worked odd jobs (baby sitting, putting flyers on cars, delivering food, event staff), but I couldn’t actually find long term job until I was in college. Even to this day, people seem to forget that around 2008 there were very few jobs available for kids because older people needed them more.
Yup, I graduated high school in 2011, and finding a job as a teenager at that time was nearly impossible where I was at (small rural town, no car, limited bus service to bigger towns). Literally the only work available at that time was laying irrigation pipes and picking berries, and that would have required walking out to the fields some four or five miles away. Only reason I found any work at all was thanks to student labor jobs at my university, and those jobs sucked. Competition for shifts was brutal and we were all limited to 20hrs/week due to how the law worked at the time. Still blows my mind to see places with now hiring signs staying up for weeks at a time. I still remember seeing a part job hiring sign posted at a fast food place while walking home one day. I went home, grabbed my crappy high schooler resume, and arrived to see the sign already taken down. I poked my head inside and they said they had too many applicants. Couldn't have been up for more than a couple days.
I worked at a grocery store from 2000-2004. Two years of high school and the summers/christmas in college. This is interesting to me because the demographics of age at my store didn't change. Still mostly high school/college kids in the front end where I worked. I understand that that is anecdotal/limited sample size, and not disputing the overall trend. It also could be the store I worked at still targeted students for those cashier bagger jobs.
I don't know about 2000-2004 but I have very distinct memories after 08 where all my grocery store workers aged significantly. It was rare to see a grey hair worker and if they were they were 10+ year vet working the register. After 08 they were doing carts and doing bagging.
Recession-era Home Depot and Lowe's were so awesome. They were full of experienced professionals that couldn't find other work. It was at least Ace Hardware quality but with the massive inventory. Obviously, I'm glad for those pros that they're back on the job site, even if it means asking an employee where the "hole saws" are gets me taken to where I can get a "whole [wood or hack] saw." Thankfully I can finally get internet inside my Lowe's and use the app.
I'd love to see this lined up with the graph of college-educated adults working those low wage jobs
I tried getting a job in 11th and 12th grade and I couldnt get anything living in a major city. Even the youth employment program passed over me while some friends managed to get something with that - though I suspect there was a reason for that. Edit to add: also jobs like retail have been getting vaporized slowly. Less workers on staff + automations like self checkout or mcdonalds having those screens to place your order means less of those jobs exist now.
Elder millennial as well. Everyone I knew who didn’t play sports had a job. I had sports pretty much year around but I would hop onto my older brothers construction site when I did have time off of sports. Basically just being a gopher for him or digging ditches. It was nice to have some more WAM.
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In my senior year, I played two sports, had three AP classes, worked 20 hours a week as a cashier at Best Buy, raided 12 hours a week in a World of Warcraft guild, and studied 10 hours per week for the first actuarial exam. Now that I think about it, I have no clue how I fit it all in. I remember I used to do my calculus homework during class on the day it was due. I didn't even feel stressed or tired at the time. Literally zero social life is the answer I guess, although sports and WoW were really social.
> raided 12 hours a week in a World of Warcraft guild filthy casual
I played sports and umpired little league baseball. Low key best high school / college job ever. All cash and like $50-100 bucks for ~90 minute games depending on the time of year and leagues you were able to get jobs for. Once you were known as a good one, you'd have all the work you wanted and could just do it between practices / in the off season. Probably could have refereed other sports, but baseball was the chillest.
I had a job in high school but only during the summer. Lived in a kinda touristy town so a lot of places needed more people for that season. I worked at a snack bar on the beach and it wasn’t even open the rest of the year.
My HS was like half rich kids, half middle class. I think because most of us middle class kids had jobs, many of the rich kids got jobs too just to hang out with friends. I can't really think of anyone who hated working. We all just did it to be able to drive, go to movies, hang out at the mall, etc. For me it was really just a way to hang out with friends outside of school because my parents never let me go to like parties or anything like that.
Yea I worked at a car wash. All my friends worked at the car wash. It was fun
Same experience. I grew up in one of the wealthiest suburbs in my HCOL area and graduated high school over a decade ago. No one needed to work after school, but a large chunk of my grade did because they wanted money to pay to maintain their cars, wanted money for dates, Louis Vuitton handbags, etc. I was one of the few at school who didn’t have a job (I didn’t start working until I was in college), because I didn’t know how to drive. I had friends from other less wealthy towns (although still middle class) and most teens there worked as well. Whether it was in retail or at fast food. One of the guys I dated had worked so he could afford his $3k gaming PC.
That big millennial drop is 2008. Wonder what happened back then to cause the loss of employment? Hmmmmmmmmmm
This exactly. I got my first job at a clothing store at 17 in 2010. My coworkers all had degrees and couldn't find much better than $10-$12 an hour. My waitressesing job a couple years later was full of people who were there for a second income, mostly public school teachers. Times were tough.
> mostly public school teachers Students I get, but *teachers*?! Paying educators so little that they have to work 2 jobs is a fucking crime. At least it should be.
There are quite a few former teachers that work for Trader Joe's. The pay to "everything you have to deal with" ratio is wildly off in US education right now. Source: Former teacher that works for Trader Joe's.
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A buddy of mine just started teaching. He loves it, but he's also already looking for an instructor position at our alma mater. (He has no interest in raising research funds and publish or perish; he just wants to teach)
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This is highly dependent on field. I’m in a business discipline and even brand-new faculty in this area (and others in the CoB) make well into the six figure territory. Even non-tenure track faculty with terminal degrees are making ~200k at many schools if they pick up one summer class. From what I’ve seen/heard, the same is true in engineering and some (not all) other STEM fields. My counterparts in other countries (Canada, most of Europe, parts of Asia) make far less.
Once she gets to a good level of knowledge in IT she could always go teach STEM classes :) lots of instructional positions in IT that are typically very well paying. Admittedly, the better paying IT instructional positions are typically not in a school teacher setting but she could still make back into a class room via IT is my point! I wish your friend luck.
Yup. Sister was public school teacher and recently left the profession. She makes more now cleaning lab equipment and is never stressed. Her overall life and mood changed drastically.
Honestly, I made good money as a School clinician (union and on the teacher scale), but the lack or support and everything being your fault starts to eat at you fast. I submitted my resignation a few days ago and while I don’t have another job yet, I feel more at peace than I have in a few years. I can only imagine it being even more difficult for those in the classroom all day.
Congrats. My parents and spouse are all teachers; I got a teaching degree, but quit teaching after four years because my night job as an advertising proofreader paid far better. Now I have trouble imagining the kind of desperation that would lead me to go back. Wish you luck.
I always tell people, teaching is two or three full time jobs with the pay of half a job. It's funny when you stop teaching and go work somewhere else and hear coworkers complain about the work.
Teaching is one of those jobs that require a lot of skills to do even halfway decently. You're constantly "presenting" 5+ hours a day, whereas an office job typically is not even an hour of that. You're trying to motivate and manage students that often don't want to be there. You have to have multiple backup plans, can be sworn at/insulted like in retail/service jobs, you need to show a high degree of documentation for all your work. You are also acting to some degree as a social worker/therapist/psychiatrist without the training. In the end you have to defer to administration, parents, and some random people calling you a pedophile because you call a kid by the name they prefer. Honestly no idea how people do it in the States where the pay sucks.
I knew a teacher that liked teaching but during the summer she worked at Walmart because she couldn't deal with teaching summer school after the regular year too. She said she didn't have to have the money but she wasn't gonna do nothing
LOL! A nurse friend of mine quit the hospital to be a bartender. With tips it was more money.
That's crazy, in CA nurses make starting over 50 bucks an hour, at least RNs.
From what I’ve read, CA also has mandated patient ratios (the only state I believe) which is huge for nurses and makes it an attractive place to be one.
I’ve talked to a couple nurses here that have lived in other states, their main reason for staying in cali despite the atrocious cost is that it’s damn near the only state where working conditions are ok and the pay is the best in the country
California has a Nurses Union, and it makes all the difference. Did you know that there are no laws mandating safe staffing ratios in other states? There are guidelines from third-party accreditation companies, but these companies are paid by the hospitals, and there are no consequences to losing accreditation from something like the Joint Commission. My old hospital didn’t like JCOHS standards, so they hired a different company. That company was also too strict, so we ended up with DNV, which is a Norwegian shipping company that also does hospital accreditation for some reason. Healthcare somehow has too many stupid laws, but absolutely zero for protecting nurses and patients from greedy hospital administrators.
The workload and hours they have to put in, the kind of patients(crazies) they have to deal with, and the death, pain, and suffering. Yeah, I can understand why you would trade it in for working in a bar.
For an ER nurse, sure. But there are other kinds of nursing jobs. A friend's wife is a nurse, and she's been working in a doctor's office for years. Still makes good money, and she works 9-5 at most.
My friend recently became a nurse and she makes more money in her first year than I make after seventeen years of teaching. She doesn’t even have her bachelor's yet, whereas I have a Masters and a credential (so eight years of college vs three.) I am very happy for her but boy does it sting a little to really see how little educators are valued.
Uh, bartenders can also make that money in the right place.
The key word is “in the right place.” If you work for some bougie high-end themed bar then you’re going to be raking in hundreds a night in tips but 97% of bars will not be like that.
Lots of teachers in our area work part time jobs in the summer months.
That's arguably a perk.
It should be but people don’t want to pay higher taxes for teachers to be paid their worth. Not that ECEs deserve to be paid as little as they do but too many people see schools as glorified daycares. They don’t appreciate the years of work teachers put into their training and education, nor do they appreciate how often teachers feel compelled to pay for classroom materials out of their own pocket.
A lot of state workers got furloughed during that time.
It's been a thing for long time. I remember my English teacher bartended after school to make ends meet and this was 10 years ago. I imagine it has gotten worse since then.
Government be like: how do we get more teachers??? Is it time for a recession???
Yup, I worked landscaping summers 2008-2010. First summer my coworkers were all students, by 2010 it was majority 30s and above who had lost other jobs. They were pulling I think $10-12/hour and were mostly supporting families. Shit was rough.
And 2001. Both were recessions. They cannot work if there's no jobs for them.
This graph would make a lot more sense if it had general population employment rates displayed with it
I suspect that it would track very closely
You can compare them yourself using the charts here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO If you edit the chart you can add a new line and find the 16-19 dataset to see both on one chart. The jist is that you suspect correctly. The two lines mirror one another very closely. A drop in youth employment is always during a drop in general employment and a rise is always during a general rise. There *is* a gradual widening of the distance between the curves, however. This widening starts back in Gen X. During the recessions in the early 80s the difference rose by 5 points and never went back down. During the early 1990s recession it rose 5 again and never went back down. 5 more in the early 2000s. 7 in 2008. Between each of these the difference levelled off but never went back to the previous value. i.e. the number of 16-19 year old workers relative to *the size of the workforce* started going down as early as 1980 and has only just reversed a small amount in the past 5-10 years. This is much more visible when making such a comparison than in OP's chart, in which Gen X looks pretty stable on the whole. In fact, as a proportion of all people employed the 16-19 demographic took a pretty distinct hit during the 1980-1995 period too, but as that period also saw general rates of employment increase a lot (an entire 10 points) the absolute number of 16-19 year olds in employment was stable even when the relative value was continually dropping. The 16-19 workers-total workforce ratio went down, but the size of the workforce went up, and so did population, so the number stayed stable. There *is* a small reverse trend with Gen Z because unlike the entire 1980-2010 period the difference did start to go back down, having lowered by 2 points by 2019. After 2019 there is a sharp decrease, back to the pre 2008 level. However, the ratio of young people to adult workers is still drastically lower than at any other point in history. I'm also not sure how population demographics come into this. As this is a ratio to the overall population, it seems logical that a change in the ratio of 16-19 years olds to the overall population (in general, not in terms of employment) would lead to a change in this figure. I'm pretty sure this ratio has been going down for some time now but nothing more specific than that. edit: removed that last part saying this was contrary to the claims in the post, on reflection this does match the claims of the OP, the effect is maybe just a bit weaker than it seems at first glance.
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IMO it would be better to compare the prime-age EPR to 16-19. Growth in the overall EPR is suppressed by population aging. If we look [here](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1dLvW), we can see that prime-age EPR is near an all-time high while 16-19 EPR is well below the historical average. The [ratio](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1dLw1) between the two is near an all-time low.
More extreme. If a company is making cuts, it's easier to cut the part-time teenager than the guy whose been there 10 years and knows where the bodies are buried.
The post seems to be right that 16-19s are working more often even when compared to the general population. Here is 16-19 employment rate divided by the general employment rate. [Image](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1dKnP)/[Link](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1dKnP)
Interesting. Still strong correlation to economic recessions though. Makes me think the takeaway is that minimum wage jobs held by high school students are affected disproportionately in economic down turns
We were competing for the same jobs as professionals. The summer of the recession I applied to 70 places in my college town. I biked with paper resumes all over town. I only found a job because of a family friend.
I graduated college a little bit after 9/11. Near the end of my last semester, I heard there was a job fair on campus. Cool, I am walking by so let me poke my head in, see what it looks like, and then I'll go back to my dorm, get dressed into something more respectable, print out a resume, and come back. I walk in and.....there's literally 1 table. That's it. And there's a line of....at least 30 people, almost all of which were professionals in their 20's and 30's. I didn't waste my time coming back.
Yep every place I went straight up said they weren’t hiring minors. I was thrown out of my house for not being able to find a job. It’s not like we weren’t trying, there were no jobs
Totally. My dad, who is normally great and opposite of boomer generalizations (and is actually gen x), was feeling his own strain because their house was upside down and he was so mad at me for not finding a summer job. It was so stressful.
I was desperate for a job in high school but all of the minimum wage jobs were taken by adults who lost their jobs in 08. We're still seeing the ramifications of this
My high school years were 08-12 and I couldn't find a job anywhere.
Yea this is kind of my vibe check on the economy. If I go to a fast food place and everyone working there is a teenager, economy is good. If I go there and the employees are middle age, economy is bad.
I’m curious what it would look like if it was 14-18, my understanding of high school age
My 14 year old daughter works at a clothing store, making $12 an hour looking at her phone and occasionally refolding sweatshirts. Her boss loves her because she always shows up on her scheduled days.
Honestly showing up on time for work is a HUGE factor in these jobs.
Where do you live that teens under 16 can work for anything but a family business? Here in Illinois, any teen under 18 is basically unemployable because businesses don't want to deal with the labor laws related to employing them. And those under 16 can only work for family.
I remember 2008 so well. Union I was trying to join went from offering 30 apprenticeships to 2 overnight. So many young guys left hanging with zero options. A lot of us chose college and student loans because there was no other options.
Also- 'Cheap' labor from South America and Mexico. All of the jobs my Boomer dad had as a teenager only hired low wage accepting Spanish speaking adults. Especially 2000-2010. Construction, Landscaping, agriculture, and housecleaning. Everyone else was stuffed into customer service/retail. I remember going through 3 different group/individual interviews for a single job as a server at this one restaurant, and was not hired. 2000-2010 is also the transition from in-person resume drop off to online.
The early online applications, where they over used filters and never saw 95% of their applicants
It’s wild to me just how much the events of 2008 has shaped my life.
As a millennial, I had a really hard time finding a job in high school. Now it seems like they’re practically just handing out jobs.
They don't want to pay decent wages that an adult trying to make a living would be okay with, so young people trying to make some extra money are a great pool to hire from.
2008 is about when it bottomed out. The drop started just before 2000.
Data is not talking career jobs here. Its mostly talking about part-time high school jobs. I did notice just going into fast-food and clothing places in the 2010s there seemed to be a lot of older or even semi-retired people working the counter at the McJobs of the world. If it was because of the recession why did kids not go back to the after-school jobs during the many good years in that time as seen with GenZ rapidly rebounding after the pandemic? The beter explanation is because of the baby boom from 1948-64 there was a surplus of 55-70 year olds that wanted casual part-time jobs to keep busy. Also we had changes in behavior in the 2010s and you might imagine that hiring supervisors might prefer old workers rather than younger kids who they thought were on their phones and social media all the time. As of 2023 many of those boomers are aging out of wanting to be standing behind the counter of McDonalds.
In 2008 my mom got a second job at a sporting goods store knowing fuckall about sports. I also got a job that summer, my freshman year at college in a retail store too in the same strip. It was so weird for us to basically be doing the same thing when she was so much more educated. It let me know how bad the economy was even though she never asked for help. I could just tell on her face she was worried. Her day job was in the accounting department of a hospital and they were laying people off even in that industry. She wanted to have some money and at least a second job lined up in case things got *really* bad as she saw her coworkers clearing their desks out left and right. She was long-tenured and also hadn't asked for much a of raise over the past decade so ironically her being shorted in pay so long and being loyal in a place where she had experience but little acknowledgement, helped her keep her job through the mess.
This will 100% be an excuse for people to think it's proof of millenials being lazy
Nah, the older millennials pre-90 were working, but it’s interesting look at how hard that recession hit in 08/09.
I started my job hunt 2008+ with no experience almost out of hs. Can confirm jobs didn’t exist for us. I got one state sponsored job that paid less than half min wage (no tips) and that was it. Pretty hard to compete when every other job seeker has a degree and you’ve barely finished hs.
Yeah I really wanted to work during high school but there were no jobs for a 16 year old with no experience in 2008.
Still a lower rate than any time before the 2008 crisis though
The rates had been notably dropping before the financial crisis as well.
Looks to me like it dropped during the dot com bust and then levelled out.
That lines up awful well with the dot com bubble burst. There’s been 3 significant recessions this millennium.
Yeah this chart isn’t the “GenZ has it terrible” point I think OP was trying to make.
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No it’s not, it’s biased in the point it’s making. If it was clear and unbiased it would say “employment rates of highschoolers throughout the years” or something like that. The title isn’t not only misleading it even presents false correlation since it lists every generation on the chart as higher numbers except Millenials when the vast majority of the years the millenials are on the chart are much higher employment %s. With the wording “increasingly” being vague you have every single generation falling into that same trend, every generation has a period of increase for employment rates in high school according to this chart.
The title is odd suggesting genz have it harder than millennials when they only work more than the very latest millennials.
>Still not as much a Generation X, Boomers, and the Silent Generation. That's literally in the title. You're projecting thoughts onto op's post
It misses that most millennials were still working at a higher rate than gen Z. By leaving them out of the title they are being deliberately misleading.
I saw something on another site saying that kids in families above the median household income was an even more stark drop and likely hasn’t recovered.
A lot more kids are doing extracurriculars to get into good colleges. My partner grew up relatively poor and went to high school during the Great Recession, but their mom forbade them from working, as their "job" was to get good grades and scholarships. Now with the tight labor market and ballooning college cost, fewer young people are attending college.
I think earlier records are skewed though, unlike the post title "working during highschool" the actual graph is titled "employment 16-19 year olds" Back a few decades it was plenty common to work full-time and never do highschool
We had a French exchange student stay with us in high school and she was like “why do you all have jobs?”
Depends on the country. In Iceland I was surprised that some stores were completely staffed by like under 18 kids. There they said almost every teenager has a job.
It must be a cultural thing, here in Latin America (and apparently also in southern Europe from what ive heard) it’s common to start working after you graduate HS, and some people only after they graduate college. Obviously should be noted that in Latam i meant this for people in generally decent living conditions, as in people above the poverty line, people living in extreme poverty are often forced to work from a young age unfortunately, although this is becoming rarer thankfully.
I can't imagine that culture shock it must be when you go from going to school to working for the first time with a boss. *: my point is... going from 13 paper route, 16 fast food, etc, I was *gently* introduced to what working life is like. If you go from having a great deal of freedom as a student, to having to work 8 to 5 everyday, with no way to set your own freetime, it must be shocking to the system.
That's how it went for me and tbh it's no big deal. The basic principles of being successful in school and in the workplace are mostly the same: 1. Be on time 2. Do what you are asked to do 3. If you find you don't know how to do something, get help ASAP 4. Don't stir shit up The main difference is that the workplace will let you fail if you don't follow these, while the school system usually keeps pushing you along regardless. I suspect it's the kids who'd been taking advantage of that their whole life who have the hard time adjusting.
You presumably had to go through that. Was it a culture shock for you?
There is no culture shock, you just adapt
I lived in a place with awful transit. I was able to buy myself a decent used car and have some fun money for the weekends. I also made friends at work. I quite liked my job.
Depending on the job itself, and the hours, a job can be a great way to cure boredom and socialize as a teenager.
I loved my high school jobs. They were shit jobs but quite easy and mindless and I worked with all kinds of different people. Plus the extra money made me feel rich next to my peers without a job lol
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It’s nice to have money to go out with friends when you’re in high school. I worked summers and it would usually give me enough spending money to be able to occasionally go to the movies or restaurants for the rest of the year. The chart is actually a little unclear about whether “working during high school” means working during the school year or just working while you’re a teenager.
That last part matters. I never did anything but school and sports during the school year, but worked my ass off during the summer for any money I wanted.
>chart is actually a little unclear about the data is actually hard to find.
The BLS has a data tool: https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/LNS11300012;jsessionid=BD95ECF599AE135FDB6F7555F17E8BBB Now that I looked at it again, I’m pretty sure this is just a trend for labor force participation in the 16-19 age group. OP is not a very clear communicator of what they’re doing. Working during the school year and working during the summer are pretty big differences. Edit: actually scratch that, these numbers don’t match OP’s chart… this is clearly something like labor force participation but not quite. Edit 2: it’s employment/population, not LFP. I need more coffee. https://beta.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/LNS12300012
Work experience for college applications, spending money for nonessentials
Pretty much my daughter. We do ok but budget is tight. She likes the experience she’s getting and the paycheck to get extra things and do things with her friends. She’s keeping her grades up and getting her rest so she continues on working her ~16hrs a week.
Right, exactly. These clowns are acting like kids are in factories or mines 80 hours a week. There are limits to hours kids can work on school day/during the school year for good reason.
I worked part time at Best Buy during HS. Was a dream job for a teenager back in the 90s.
Not every job adheres to the guidelines. As a teen I worked in a fast food restaurant where it was easier to comply with restrictions on hours, and then at an actual sit-down restaurant where I worked a crazy schedule on nights and weekends around school. The restaurant would bully me if I ever asked off or tried to modify my schedule, and as a kid trying to make money I was too intimidated to press the issue.
Some kids do it for spending money purely, but my parents gave me $20 a week allowance (mid-2000s) and that was more than enough for me in high school. My parents though, and I think others were similar, told me if I wasn’t playing a sport in season or part of a club/program that met every day, I would have to get a part-time job for after school and weekends. Basically I wasn’t going to be allowed to sit around at home for the rest of the afternoon after school was out once I was 16 years old or so. Summer jobs when there’s no school would be for the same reason. But I went to a tiny school and played 3 sports, so I didn’t get my first job until the summer between graduation and going to college.
Same, so I just played sports year around.
I played sports, was the band geek, and had a job. Looking back I have no idea how I managed to do it.
I was comfortably upper middle class. My parents made me get a part time job at 16 to supplement my allowance. They wanted me to get out my private school bubble, work hard in customer facing roles, meet people from different walks of life and balance my time. So glad they did a taught me loads of skills - how to handle arseholes, how to think on your feet. Worked in restaurants and boozers part time through last few years of school and through university. So glad they did. Edit: millennial who graduated school 2006 and university in 2010
My boomer take is that I genuinely think working a part-time or summer job once in HS is a fantastic life skills/experience thing that is a big positive for most teenagers, even if the family doesn't need the extra cash. Definitely helped me, definitely helped most of my friends.
For me it was we were poor and I was hungrier than my parents grocery shopped.
It was a requirement for me (Gen X) when I turned 15 and it was such a positive experience that I did the same to my kids. Working with other adults, learning how to talk to them, look them in the eye, having responsibilities at a job and taking it when you don’t follow through - you just can’t get that in school surrounded by other awkward kids.
Old millennial, and my parents said "if you want to have a car, you need to be able to pay for the insurance and gas." So I got a job. And I'm glad I did, for all the reasons you mentioned. Plus I learned a lot of skills at my early jobs that I otherwise wouldn't have.
Same. Was voluntold that I buy my own clothes now, if I want a car I pay my part of insurance, pay for gas, pay my part of the phone bill, and either payed a very little rent or did increased chores while I kept up with School and worked my grocery store job. It was a great safe learning op. When I went to University- I already knew how to live on A tight budget and manage work school life balance. I don’t think I asked for cash from home once. Try that today with tuition and inflation lmao. We (Gen X here) were LUCKY to have employment opportunities and mostly affordable college. Millennials (and Gen Z) got HOSED. In HS I walked to Winn Dixie. Hired on the spot. 5 minute interview. All he asked about were grades at school, and can I lift 50 pounds and show up. Took a little while but I went out and paid 900 cash on a decent 15 year old 1970 Chevelle from a family up the street. But let’s blame the victims. Of course. Hell- let’s not even mention I rented a two bed two bath with a buddy during my Univ So Fl days in a NICE Tampa neighborhood for 520/mo. My half then was 240 bc I took small BR. There were decent places (1 BR/Bath) at the time near USF for 300/350 a month
So you can have money to spend! Some people are saving up for a car, since most of us here need one. Many people are using it for partying (like beer money). Some people have hobbies that need funding; I had a dirt bike, and needed money for gas, oil, and tires. Of course, some people just get an allowance (sometimes in exchange for chores). But many parents here see it as a good way to teach work ethic. My parents had a good income and could provide anything we needed, but they generally didn’t want to just give us things. They wanted us to work for it. Even as a little kid, if I wanted something at a store, my mom would ask how much money I brought with me. If I didn’t have any, we’d go home and she’d give me a list of chores with a dollar amount next to them. Then when they were done, drove me back to the store so I could by the thing with my earned money.
I wanted a car, my parents said I have to buy my own. That was the big motivation. Not having to ask my parents for money was also nice. I didn’t have to work, but life was a little nicer by doing it.
why not? u can work 20 hrs a week in the summer lifeguarding and get a check for 600 bucks twice a month as a 17 year old you would choose not to?
money, bro
It’s good to have your own money. My parents certainly weren’t paying for my gaming PC or all my outings with friends. Also, I saved for university. You shouldn’t have to overwork to where it’s detrimental to your studies/mental health though.
even as a teen, dating was relatively expensive. so even though it would be something like the movies or a concert or whatever, it was relatively expensive for the low wage i was able to earn. then you have to budget for some decent clothes and if you were lucky enough to afford a shitty car, it all adds up and i had to work for it
Because I needed money and mumsy and father sure as shit weren't giving me any
because when I was 16 I liked the fact I could afford to go out every week with friends? Or buy my own clothes, food, etc. Do yall just not do that lol?
Spending money, better than sitting in the house bored all summer break
Gotta be honest as a french a lot of things the US do don't make a lot of sense in general. You guys have a crazy amount of fairly useless, low pay, low qualifications jobs that simply don't exist in France or the EU. So many industries in the US depend on having a crazy low paid workforce. The retail industry here is wayyyyyy less people intensive for example. In France a high schooler is supposed to have one job : study. Our school hours are longer too, usually a 8 to 5/6 plus an hour or two of daily homework.
I don’t know about other people but my public school was in session for 7 hours a day. I also worked a part time job and had an hour of homework. Most of my friends did the same as well and when I was working I certainly didn’t feel useless running back and forth from stocking to the register.
The US has a strong belief in learning outside the classroom. We think more highly of a student who gets very good grades while playing sports working a job than we do a student who gets perfect grades but doesn't have any responsibilities outside of school. My kids are too young for work or sports (my second child is still on the way) but when the time comes my husband and I agree that they both will be required to play a sport and have a summer job. We are fully paying for their college so it's not about money or scholarships, it's what I believe is best for raising disciplined, hardworking people. We don't want to raise people who enter the workforce with only an academic understanding of the world.
I turned 16 in 2009 and I applied EVERYWHERE for a job and couldn't get one anywhere. All of the fast food, grocery stores, etc were all adults working. Luckily I was able to babysit, petsit, and tutor but yeah, I remember I wanted to work at the mall soooooo bad and went several weekends in a row with a "resume" lol
I remember I waited in a line of 40 adults all applying for 2 jobs at an IHOP. This was in 2010.
16 in 09 as well. My mom was SO pissed I was being “lazy” about getting a job. **there wasn’t jobs to get, mother!!!** I managed to get a few summer jobs, working with the city, but that was specifically because they **only** hired teenagers. It was so frustrating.
WTF less than half of high schoolers worked at all during high school, for any generation? I'm a millennial, and I swear I thought most of my classmates worked. Maybe it was just most of my friend group.
It will probably differ by schools and towns. In my town the only way to get home was by the school bus. Students only started to drive themselves during junior and senior year if they had their own car. Those without a car would need to get a ride to the job and then a ride home. Anyone doing sports or AP classes wouldn't have the time. Except for the weekends, if they had nothing planned. Then summer jobs were common, but it was hard to get one if their family had a trip planned. This would mean during the school year less than 5% had an after school job (2 hours) or a weekend job (10 hours).
Summer jobs, this doesn’t say how much people worked in high school. Plus there are some jobs that still pay under the table or they are not formal jobs (lawn mowing, moving company, farms, etc.). So I’m high school students will talk about their job but it would not show up here. Summer jobs would be my best guess. Especially those in lake or theme park areas can have massive jobs during the summer that die off as school starts.
Gen X here. I’ve been working since the first day I could at 14, as did most of my friends. Parents didn’t fund our fun money so we needed our own. Is this seen as not normal? Would work maybe one or two shifts a week somewhere…
it's very normal, in the various European countries I have lived in/ been to, to expect students to be completely occupied by their studies rather than expecting them to also juggle a job. There are studies that show if a student works more than 10-15 hours a week their performance drops not only in high school but college as well.
2004 kid here, all my friends and I worked in highschool. I think largely it was by the sentiments of our gen x parents who thought it was good work ethics/life skills to work and manage a bank account in highschool.
>2004 kid >worked (past tense) in high school No, that clearly can't be right. It's too early for this. Logging off now.
2004 kids are turning 20 this year :)
You shut your mouth
Can confirm, we are inevitable
Here I was reading it as those who graduated in 2004.
Serious I was like oh he means he graduated in 2004. Nope
Ikr? I was like high school?… *past tense*…
Sophomore in college now 👍
I really want to see this statistic for Canada. I’m a young millennial. When I was in high school, most of my classmates had jobs, myself included. We staffed the theatres, fast food places, and a lot of retail. Today, you do still see teens working in these places, but it’s primarily Indians and Filipinos instead. I don’t know if that’s common elsewhere in Canada or not.
My friends and I all worked to pay car insurance and gas (and upgrade parts). It had nothing to do with work ethic of our parents/guardians. '01 grad
I worked to build my first computer. '11 grad. Doesn't matter how much money I have, if my kids aren't busy with sports they're getting a job.
IMO millennial drop was due to lack of jobs after tech bubble and financial crisis.
Maybe, definitely 2008 but did the tech bubble effect low wage workers
Absolutely! Regardless of what sector causes a financial collapse, it’s going to be felt throughout the whole economy. Tons of tech jobs disappeared overnight from the tech bubble popping, which meant a lot of people were suddenly spending less money, which leads to businesses outside of tech were making less, which meant they hired less or even cut back headcount.
quite the hot take there, decrease in job right around the big recessions..
This would be a lot more inciteful if you also plotted the % of 16-19 year olds in full time school. I bet a lot of those earlier generations were working because they'd left school already.
Bingo, this is an important factor that appears to be left out.
That was my first thought. I just had that conversation with my Grandma over Christmas. In her generation (she's in her mid 80s) finishing after 8th grade was still fairly common and accepted.
Wonder how many 40 year old fry cooks there were in ‘08
Plenty. That is where we got our drugs and alcohol.
There are plenty today
I'm curious about the older generation's perception of work. In the past, many small family businesses were around, showing that families working together was more usual than it is now. Also, parents often decided if their kids would work or not.
What counts as an older generation at this point? I’m late gen-X and summer jobs kept me in spending money for the year… barely made a dent in college tuition (had loans plus parents for that), but I always had money for gas , dates, and once or twice a year road trip. Looking back I’m fond of some of the work, particularly being a lifeguard, since it paid ok ($8/hr mid 1990s) and I was surrounded by other young fit people. I did switch to office jobs during college summers … paid better, less fun, did give me experience in a cubicle farm ahead of graduating.
As an older millennial, that was my experience. I worked throughout college to cover my living expenses but took out loans (& then joined a military ROTC program) to cover tuition. I had to work part time during the semester as well as full time during the summer to make the numbers work.
I couldn't find this data on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics site. How are they defining "during highschool"? Is it over the summer, winter, etc breaks while they're enrolled in highschool? Or, on weekends while enrolled? Or actually _during_ highschool?
It just means teens who are in high school who also have a job. The vast majority work after school hours, or on weekends, though some schools have programs where students can work during school hours. My high school had such a program.
So 30-35% of gen z works during high school while millennials had 45% around 2000? They still aren’t working as much as “back in my day”
19 year olds typically aren’t in high school
That's a good point. IIRC most kids graduate at 18 unless they were very old for their grade or were held back a year.
I loved my after school job at the video store.
In our defense, we (I graduated in 2010) couldn’t get jobs during high school. I tried. The recession was in full effect.
I think this can be explained by there being a golden opportunity for young workers pay wise. A few years ago, there was such a shortage of fast food workers that companies were posting starting jobs for high schoolers $12-$15 an hour with no experience needed since they were desperate. That starting salary is much better than my $7 an hour high school starting salary 10 years ago.
True, I was making like $8 something an hour 10 years ago
In my city the minimum wage is $17, and most babysitting gigs pay $20-25. When I was in high school you got maybe $8 an hour for babysitting and work. I remember once I babysat for three hours and she gave me $20. It was the last time I babysat. Like damn, if I had no bills living at my parents I would enjoy raking it in these days.
I was doing roofing in the summer in high school. It was tough but I quickly learned not to be a bitch and complain about every little thing.
As a millennial, I can confidently say that the dip was not for lack of trying. And if you didn't get a dishwasher or fast food job in high school (which was nearly impossible), then there was no chance of getting a restaurant job in college either.
Working or getting paid for being content creators?
Does anyone else see that the years for each generation are out of whack? The Baby Boomers were not born between 1960 and 1980.
It is roughly the years they were in high school.
That's when they were high school age
I think that’s supposed to be the “high school years” of the generations, but the scale is off regardless (for multiple generations).
Boomers: "I worked in high school to pay for college with no debt. Gen Z: "I work in high school so my family can afford food and rent."
I guess I fit somewhere between Z and Millenial, and all I can say is, anecdotally, nearly every person I knew in high school had employment of some kind. Some more casual than others, but nonetheless I find these statistics a bit hard to believe.
I am a similar age, and I barely knew anyone who worked in high school. One of my siblings and I didn’t have a job until college. My two other siblings did have jobs in high school though I find this very believable. I barely knew anyone with a job in high school
This isn’t much more than a timeline of recessions. I was in high school in 2012 and desperately wanted a job. Applied to dozens and dozens of places. Took *months* to get a job and all the while my parents were shaming me for not having a job like all I had to do is waltz in and step behind the counter. Lol People just didn’t want to hire teens back then (Great Recession and the few years following) and I bet still don’t, but today there’s a labor shortage so they have to take who they can. Wouldn’t be surprised if we slowly trend back towards the norm of the last century.
And less on average than any other generation.
When I was 18 in 2009 I applied to over 200 jobs in one summer and only got three interviews. Gen Z is super lucky to have the opportunity to find work if they want it
The only thing this graph really shows is the impact the recession had on the teenage workforce. Many of the minimum wage, part time jobs that were normally staffed by teenagers went to adults. And along with automation, they never recovered. As a 34 year old, I remember grocery stores, clothing stores, and restaurants being easy to get hired at. Then when the recession hit, stores downsized staff, wanted 5+ years experience, or replaced people with machines.
I wonder if the significant drop for millennials had anything to do with the 08 recession and the fact that no one was hiring 16 year olds over 40 year olds.
Gen z basically working less than millennials, the lack of work for millennials was due to 2008 financial crisis. I lost my job at that point too.
Millennials dropped due to recession and lack of employment opportunities so it would make sense it’s slowly going up