Teen joblessness

The United States is slowly working its way out of a sluggish economy, but unemployment continues to be a problem for American teens.

The once-commonplace scenes of a boy tossing a newspaper into his neighbor’s yard, or a girl scooping ice cream at a local parlor are decreasing as the unemployment rate among 16-to-19-year-olds hovers above 20 percent nationwide. Neil Sullivan, the head of the Boston Private Industry Council, said the United States now has half as many as many jobs for 16-to-19-year-olds as it did in the late 1990s. According to Sullivan, the teen job market didn't recover from the "mini-recession" of 2001 and the unemployment problem burgeoned further during the Great Recession of 2008. “So that's the American economy and that's why youth employment, the employment of 16- to 19- year-olds, has fallen off the table and quite frankly out of the conversation,” Sullivan said. “I mean, this is something political leaders, beyond our mayor and those who pay attention to it, need to elevate.” The Wall Street Journal reported teens make up fewer than 4 percent of the labor force, but make up 12 percent of the estimated 11 million unemployed Americans fall between ages 16 and 19. (we will link here to unemployment estimates) Sullivan said one of the greatest causes for the decline is simply a the decline was triggered by a reduction in jobs that used to be available to teens, and that Further, college students are now "pressing down" into a jobs once held by high school students. Andrew Sum, an economist at Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies, agreed with this assessment . (link for this) “[Employers] have got choices about whom to hire, and teenagers just unfortunately are at the very back of that queue,” he said. “Like, when we were talking to employers and I asked them on customer service, why were you hiring younger college grads, rather than teenagers? They said, for one reason, because I can.” (great)

Joblessness hits minority teens hardest

Matters are even worse for minorities. While the nation’s unemployment rate sits at 7.4 percent and 23.7 percent for all 16-to-19-year-olds, African American teen unemployment has remained above 40 percent for four straight months. “You find low-income kids work at the lowest rates by far,” Sum said. “When you combine them, take a young black high school dropout low-income male, you're talking five percent employment.” (great) According to the U.S. Department of Labor , some of the decline in labor force participation among black teens may be due to an increase in school enrollment. More than 85 percent of black 16-to-19-year-olds were enrolled in school in October 2011. That’s up from 80.7 percent in 2007. (If you’re going to claim this, you’ll need to clarify the difference between jobless and unemployment rates. Unemployment means they’re actively looking for work, which would be part of not going to school. A jobless teen in school is another story.)

What does a tough teen job market mean for future employment?

While not having a job as a teenager may be tough, the long-term consequences may be even more problematic. “There's a recent study that shows if you have spent six months unemployed as a teenager, that's going to carry forward for the next 10 years of your life, because you lose experience,” Sum said. He added that young kids who don’t work are more likely to engage in criminal behavior. Also, young women who don’t work are more likely to become pregnant. Teen joblessness also impacts future earnings. “The more you work today, the more you'll be working tomorrow," Ishwar Khatiwada, also an economist at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies, told U.S. News & World Report last May . "Our findings show that if you work during high school or when you are a teen, you have a higher earnings potential in the future."