Teen challenges
The common narrative that the service industry isn’t what it used to be because people don’t want to work is not true.
According to The Washington Post, as the country re-opened after the 2020 covid lockdowns, businesses needed to hire rapidly to keep up with America’s appetite for dining out, shopping, traveling.
But employees in the millions have abandoned those kinds of jobs for better-paying opportunities.
The beneficiary? Teenagers. The increase in teens in the workplace follows decades of steady declines in youth employment dating back to the 1970s when nearly 60 percent of teens worked. The decline, according to the Pew Research Center, was the result of rising school enrollment, combined with national efforts to lower high school dropout rates and a shift toward higher-skilled jobs.
Getting into college also became more competitive, leading many high school kids to prioritize other activities, from sports to SAT prep.
Higher wages are also at the root of at least 250,000 more young Americans going to work relative to pre-pandemic employment. Employers across the country have improved starting pay, with or without mandated increases in the minimum wage, which has disproportionately benefited younger workers.
People between 16 and 24 saw the largest jump in pay last year—9.8 percent, nearly double the increase for all workers, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
It’s resulted in 37 percent of 16-to19-year-olds having jobs or looking for jobs last year, the highest annual rate in 15 years, dating back to 2009.
“The teenagers who are here now, they really want to be here,” said Nilo Gonzalez, a pizzeria owner in Albuquerque, who went from having no teens on staff to hiring three, a quarter of his workforce. “They’re energetic and ready to work, which wasn’t really the case with the previous generation of millennials.”
“When the labor market is tight, more teens work,” said Elizabeth Anant, an economics professor at Barnard College. “When teens hear there are jobs available, they take the jobs.”
And we should never underestimate the value of having a little extra gas money in order to fulfill the simple desire to get back in the real world after being shut in during the pandemic year.