Are the Kids Alright?

Summer is officially underway, and with it the annual tradition of teenagers working a mix of seasonal jobs—this year, teenagers may offer more insights into the economy than usual. 

In today’s ambiguous economy, the teenage summer hiring surge may tell us more about the health of the economy overall. Teenage employment has been falling in recent months, a potentially worrying trend. June’s employment data will be a stronger test of this trend. In a typical summer, teenage employment jumps around 7 percent from its year-round baseline to its peak in July. The teens who start new jobs in the summer are usually distinct from the teens who work year-round (and are disproportionately white). The June surge is typically about 5 percent, and this year’s may provide one of the clearest cyclical signals about the underlying resilience of 2025’s softer economy.

Two major, contradictory stories about teenage employment in the 21st century are true. Teenage employment is dramatically lower than at the end of the 20th century, when around 45 percent of Americans aged 16–19 were employed. But teenage employment is also significantly higher today than it was in the wake of the Great Recession, when it became commonly argued that we were seeing a cultural shift away from teen employment. At the lowest point, fewer than 25 percent of teens were employed (on a seasonally adjusted basis). Since the COVID recovery, we have learned those predictions of the early 2010s were flatly wrong: Teen employment post-COVID recession bounced back up to 33 percent of teens working. In other words, teen underemployment is a policy choice; teens work when a strong economy pushes up demand for workers.

Amid all the other narratives competing for attention to explain a confusing economy right now, teen employment may be our cleanest signal yet. The promise of AI could be causing some companies to slow white collar STEM hiring, but there’s little reason for that level of caution with workers who are headed back to school in a couple months. We are not reshoring summer lifeguards; they are—quite literally— already on our shores (and at our pools). That means teen employment will be an unusually clean cyclical signal of the short-term strength of the economy for the next few jobs reports. If it looks like the kids are alright, we might be too.