At 1 on a Tuesday afternoon, July 15, Drew Allred, a senior at American Fork High School, is at his Alpine home doing his laundry. With school out, one might expect most high school students are working at a summer job, but not this summer.

The percent of teenagers holding summer jobs is at its lowest in 55 years. Since 2000, the employment rate for teenagers has dropped about 9 percentage points, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Many teens like Allred are home on a Thursday afternoon, not bagging groceries at the local supermarket.

"I applied for around 20 different jobs and didn't hear back from one," Allred said. "Every where I went they told me they had already had tons of applicants."

Allred started looking for a job as soon as school was out and now, 2 months later, he is still looking.

"None of my friends can get jobs either," Allred said. "If they didn't have one before the summer started, they didn't get one."

The International Labor Organization defines unemployed people as those actively seeking work. And according to the standard United Nations definition, youth comprises the age group between 15 and 24. This age group includes many college age students.

Why the sudden increase in youth unemployment?

The ILO cites some reasons for the increase. One is that teens search for jobs more often and for a longer period of time than adults because they don't need a job to support a family. This means there are a lot more young people actively seeking a jobs. In the United States, most people hold seven to eight different jobs between the ages of 16 and 25.

Another reason is that the opportunity cost to firms of firing young people is lower than for older workers, in part because they are less likely to be under employment protection legislation.

Also, the first reaction of firms to a recession, like the one we are experiencing now, is to cease hiring. Because young people comprise a large segment of job seekers they are usually heavily affected by a freeze in new hires.

However, there is an upside. Although the teenage unemployment rate, at 19.3 percent, has been increasing since the beginning of the year and youth unemployment is higher than adult unemployment, the duration of unemployment for young people is normally less than for their older counterparts.

"Hopefully by next summer it will be a little easier to find a job," Allred said. "I'll die if I have to sit at home again."



Copyright Brigham Young University 17 Jul 2003