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Teen summer jobs are back. What’s behind the return of a rite of passage?

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Teen summer jobs are back. What’s behind the return of a rite of passage?

This summer, the share of teens working or looking for work hit a 14-year high – 38%, reversing a decades-long decline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The return of teens to lifeguard stations, grocery checkout lines, and summer camps has benefits beyond the paycheck. In addition to learning CPR or how to run a social media campaign, teens interviewed talk about learning financial literacy, planning for their future, and feeling part of a community. 

Why We Wrote This

Sacking groceries and scooping ice cream had been seen as a vanished rite of passage. But this year, the teen summer job is back in a big way.

The benefits of a summer job can shape teens’ academic and social success, according to a 10-year study conducted by Northeastern University on Boston’s teen summer employment programs. Young people increase their aspirations to go to college, have higher GPAs, and less absenteeism in school.

The need to help at home is a primary motivation for teens seeking work. Consider Jayden Orr, 16, who just started at SummerWorks in Boston.

“The main thing that’s on my mind lately is my family,” says Jayden, “because I got to help my family out. That’s how the family’s gonna eat.”

Getting a summer job used to mean working at the shoe store or working the drive-thru at Burger King. Then came the Great Recession, followed by a rush for teens to spend their summers padding their college résumés with coding and language camps.

That changed again when the world closed for COVID-19, and then reopened. Not all adults returned to their jobs. The virtual ones came and went. Enter the teenage worker, who is back in a way not seen since “Twilight’s” Team Edward or Team Jacob was the only divisive topic.

The year before the pandemic, teens accounted for just over 2% of new hires, according to Gusto, a human resources and payroll company. In 2023, teens accounted for 20% of new hires. This summer, the share of teens working or looking for work hit a 14-year high – 38%, reversing a decades-long decline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Why We Wrote This

Sacking groceries and scooping ice cream had been seen as a vanished rite of passage. But this year, the teen summer job is back in a big way.

“Employers suddenly rediscovered teenagers as an important source of labor in the post-COVID economy, when adults realized they didn’t want to come back,” says Alicia Sasser Modestino, associate professor at Northeastern University, who has been surveying Boston’s summer employment program for nearly a decade.

The return of teens to lifeguard stations, grocery checkout lines, and summer camps has benefits beyond the paycheck, according to experts and the teens themselves. In addition to learning CPR or how to run a social media campaign, teens interviewed talk about learning financial literacy, planning for their future, and feeling part of a community. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Zariyah Witherspoon, 17, poses in the recording studio where she is learning how to mix sound, at South Street Youth Center, which provides summer jobs and training to teens in Boston, July 18, 2024.

Helping out the family

Consider Jayden Orr, 16, who just started in July at SummerWorks in Boston. His reason for getting a job is both pragmatic and profound.

“The main thing that’s on my mind lately is my family,” says Jayden, “because I got to help my family out. That’s how the family’s gonna eat.”

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