Only 35.5% of U.S. teens ages 16 to 19 held a paying job for at least part of summer 2026, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of federal employment data published August 19, 2026. The figure marks a tentative upturn in an otherwise long retreat from the American tradition of the summer job, yet it still leaves nearly two in three teenagers on the sidelines of the paid workforce.
A modest rebound on a long downward slope
The 2026 rate averages figures for June and July and is up from last summer’s 33.8% , a welcome break from the recent slide. Yet the historical context is sobering.
As recently as 2000, more than half of 16- to 19-year-olds worked for at least part of the summer, a standard that had held most summers since 1948, as far back as federal jobs data goes. At the peak in 1978, 58% of teens worked for at least part of the summer.
Over the past quarter-century, teen summer employment has trended downward, especially after the dot-com bust and during the Great Recession. The low came during the summers of 2010 and 2011, when just 29.6% of teens worked for pay. The teen summer employment rate edged higher throughout the 2010s but never quite returned to pre-recession levels.
The unemployment rate among 16- to 19-year-olds stood at 14.7% in May 2026, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data , reflecting continued pressure on teen job seekers entering the season.
Who is working and what they are doing
The two most common occupations for teens this summer are food preparation and serving, averaging 1.5 million teens across June and July 2026, or 25% of all employed teens, and sales, at 1.1 million teens, or 18%.
More teens are working transportation and material moving jobs than in recent years: 701,000 on average, or 11% of all working teens, compared with 539,000, or 9%, in summer 2025.
Fewer teens are in office and administrative jobs this summer: 449,000 (7%), compared with 563,000 (9%) in summer 2025.
White teens continue to be more likely than teens of other racial and ethnic backgrounds to work in the summer, as well as during the rest of the year. As of July 2026, the employment-to-population ratio among teen boys stands at 29.4%, compared with 32.0% for teen girls. The ratio among Black teens sits at 24.8%, well below the 33.4% rate for white teens.
Why the long retreat matters for spending and skill-building
Teens ages 16 to 19 are usually among the first workers employers cut when business slows, so strain on their job prospects can be an early signal of where the broader economy is heading.
Fewer working teens also means fewer young people accumulating their first earnings, savings habits, and spending autonomy. Researchers and employers alike say those early experiences shape financial behavior well into adulthood.
That loss of early financial experience is part of a wider pattern of entry-level job scarcity for young Americans that has widened in recent years.
The downward trajectory in youth employment has been attributed to, among other factors, a generally slowing U.S. labor market, economic uncertainty, and automation that is displacing some entry-level jobs. Employers in the entertainment and leisure sector, resorts, hotels, and amusement parks that normally hire younger workers, planned to fill 70% fewer jobs than the prior year, according to a forecast from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Those sectors have long been the entry point where teens earn a first paycheck and begin to form the spending and saving habits they carry into adult life. The erosion of that early earnings window connects directly to broader pressures on American families navigating a difficult labor market at every age.
What a partial rebound does and does not signal
From the late 1940s through the 1980s, teen summer employment followed a fairly regular pattern, with rates that for most of that period stayed above 46% and reached as high as 58%. That pattern began to change in the 1990s, when the teen summer employment rate did not experience its typical bounce-back after recessions. In recent years, that figure has dropped to around one in three.
The 2026 uptick from last summer’s 33.8% to 35.5% is real but narrow, and researchers caution against reading it as the start of a sustained recovery.
While fewer teens overall are getting early work experience, that ground is eroding fastest for teen boys and teens of color, who already face steeper odds in the labor market at every age.
The Pew analysis draws on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and was published on August 19, 2026.
