Teen employment rate during summer falls to record low

y Stu Woo

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — When the summer began, Shawn P. Leonard applied for jobs at Wal-Mart, Burger King, Wendy’s and a few landscaping firms.

They all told Leonard they weren’t hiring. So instead of working, the 19-year-old spent his summer days hanging out in Kennedy Plaza with friends and family members.

“I’m still trying to find a job so I don’t have to hang out here,” said Leonard, who graduated from Mount Pleasant High School last year and hopes to save up enough money to go to college.

If it’s any consolation to Leonard, he was far from the only teenager without a summer job this year; in fact, data released by the federal government showed that this summer was the worst in history for job-hunting teens, says Andrew M. Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

This summer’s teen-employment rate of 34.5 percent easily eclipsed the previous low of 36.2 percent, set in 2004, and is significantly lower than last year’s rate of 37 percent.

“What had happened in the labor market was even more depressed than we thought,” said Sum, whose center predicted in May that this summer’s job market for teens would be similar to last year’s.

Sum said the record low is particularly troubling because the teen summer job rate has been tumbling since 2000, when 45 percent of teens held summer jobs.

“Here we are in the sixth year after a recession, where you’re expecting teens to get a disproportionate amount of jobs,” he said. His center, which will publish a report on the summer teen-employment rate in the next two weeks, says that without government intervention — such as incentives for private companies to create summer jobs and internships — the rate will continue to fall.

There are many reasons for the decline, Sum said. The labor market isn’t as strong as it was in the 1990s, and many employers are now hiring workers only 18 or older. In addition, jobs that have been traditionally filled by teens are now going to recent college graduates, to workers older than 55 — an increasing number of whom are now working into their retirement years — and to immigrants.

“Illegal immigrants have cut into the job market, especially in terms of landscaping and construction labor,” Sum said.

J. Michael Koback, executive director of the Governor’s Workforce Board in Rhode Island, says the data from the Center for Labor Market Studies “is right on.” Though his board, which is affiliated with the Department of Labor, does not currently have data on teens in the work force, he says Rhode Island is feeling the effects of the national trend. He agreed with Sum’s assessment, especially about older workers.

“If you go to a McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts, a lot of the workers are older workers,” he said. “They’re competing for the same jobs the kids used to.”

Sum believes the declining teen-employment rate is a bad thing. Those who have worked as teens are better equipped to enter the job market as adults. In addition, the lack of available summer jobs for teens hurt those who need it most.

“The saddest thing is if you look at the reports, the kids who come from the lowest-income families are the least likely to be working,” he said.

Koback said the Governor’s Workforce Board is trying to buck the trend by making youth one of its priorities. He says his board is working with two local work-force boards — Workforce Solutions of Providence/Cranston and the Workforce Partnership of Greater Rhode Island — to create a system where youths can come in, be assessed and be placed at appropriate jobs.

But Leonard doesn’t think the state is doing enough. He said many of his friends don’t have jobs, and it’s a problem.

“It’s better that we get jobs so we get off the streets,” he said. “That way, we don’t get into trouble.”