Teens used to be a pillar of the labor pool for employers during the summer season. However, today’s Employment Situation report for July 2026 shows that teen employment has remained weak. Meanwhile, the overall labor market lost 23,000 jobs—well below economists’ expectations—and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent. Additionally, May and June job growth was revised downward by a combined 103,000 jobs, and 264,000 workers left the labor market, playing a role in reducing the unemployment rate.
Teens ages 16 to 19 are usually among the first workers employers cut back on when business slows, so the strain on their job prospects can be an early signal of where the broader economy is heading. But this year’s weakness is also part of a much longer trend: The share of teens employed has been generally declining for decades, from its most recent high of 50.0 percent in August 1978 to just 30.7 percent as of this July. There were some signs of recovery following the Great Recession and through 2023, but the share has since begun to slide again.
Notably, the current decline isn’t felt equally: As of July 2026, the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) among teen boys stands at 29.4 percent, compared with 32.0 percent for teen girls. Meanwhile, EPOP among Black teens remains low at 24.8 percent but sits well below the rate of 33.4 percent for white teens. These gaps reveal that while fewer teens overall are getting the early work experience that has, in the past, set young people up for career success, that ground is eroding fastest for teen boys and teens of color, who already face steeper odds in the labor market at every age.
Teen employment has been sliding for decades
As shown in Figure 1, the share of teens employed has fallen precipitously over the past 25 years. The EPOP among teens dropped from an average of 45 percent in 2000 to just 25 percent after the Great Recession, which hit young workers especially hard. From that low, the share of teens working gradually climbed back to roughly 33 percent by 2022 and 2023. But since peaking in mid-2023, it has resumed its decline, slipping to its current share of 30.7 percent this July. Despite this being above the Great Recession lows, it is still nearly 20 percentage points below the high of 50 percent in August 1978, when Baby Boomer teens were flocking to summer jobs.
Several factors contribute to the steep decline of employed teens. One is the shift away from seasonal work starting in the 1960s, paired with the labor market cycle typically resulting in the youngest workers and Black Americans being the first to be let go when the economy softens. At the same time, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that roughly two-thirds of working teens were employed in leisure and hospitality and retail trade—two sectors that have softened the most in terms of job openings and hire rates after the COVID-19 pandemic recession.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are also beginning to take over tasks such as processing food orders, lowering the demand for occupations on which young workers have traditionally relied, including cashier positions. Additionally, the labor impacts of AI show up in the older teen cohort and beyond. A St. Louis Fed study suggests employers are supplanting 18- to 24-year-old workers with AI or using the technology to screen out applicants, accounting for roughly 45 percent of the decline in their employment-to-population ratio and about one-third of the rise in their unemployment rate between April 2023 and December 2025.
Beyond these structural labor market shifts, changes in how teens spend their time and the activities they prioritize are also at play. Labor force participation among teens has declined considerably since 2000, and research finds most of the long-term drop is a result of fewer teens working while school is in session and instead devoting the academic year to coursework. Teens today also have more activities to balance during summer, such as year-round sports and summer programs. While the focus on school has lessened labor force participation among teens, this could also be a positive outcome. In fact, although labor force participation began to decline in 2000, high school graduation rates climbed 8 percentage points between 2001 and 2016, setting teens up for better job and earnings outcomes in the future.
Conclusion
Both the overall drop in teen employment and the gaps by gender and race mean that fewer teens are getting the early work experience that has historically set up young people for a stronger footing later in their careers. That lack of opportunity is particularly concerning for teen boys and teens of color—especially Black boys, who already face steeper odds in the labor market as they age. If these gaps hold, the disparities showing now in entry-level jobs could compound into the same wage and employment gaps that are long documented among adult workers. While these EPOP trends are concerning and could be an early signal of where the broader economy is heading, the long-run data show that they coincide with rising educational attainment, which carries its own economic benefits.
The authors would like the thank Amina Khalique for her support and fact-checking of this analysis, Cristina Tello-Trillo for her thoughtful review, Bill Rapp for his assistance with figure production, and Steve Bonitatibus for editorial support.