{"id":2568,"date":"2026-06-18T21:03:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2568"},"modified":"2026-06-18T21:03:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:03:49","slug":"eager-to-work-teens-find-a-frustrating-summer-job-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2568","title":{"rendered":"Eager to work, teens find a frustrating summer job search"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

NEW YORK<\/strong> | Jaelyn Chester will wait your tables or stock your shelves. She\u2019ll wash your dishes or scrub your toilets. If only someone would give the 17-year-old a chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been looking everywhere,\u201d says Chester, an A+ student, high school basketball star and aspiring engineer who has blanketed her community with dozens of applications. \u201cI\u2019m not unemployed because I\u2019m incompetent. I\u2019m unemployed because nobody\u2019s hiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

The summer job, a rite-of-passage for generations of American teenagers, isn\u2019t so easy to come by.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

About one-third of 16- to 19-year-olds in the U.S. were employed last summer, federal data show, down from a peak of about 60% in the late 1970s. Experts\u2019 pessimistic forecasts are combining with reports from frustrated jobless young people around the country to form a seasonal outlook far from bathed in sunshine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunities for workers at the start of the career ladder started to dry up,\u201d says Nicole Bachaud, an economist for ZipRecruiter, saying teens are among the labor market\u2019s \u201cmost marginalized groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without a job, Chester worries her summer will be ruined. She wonders how she\u2019ll fill her tank with gas and what she\u2019ll do if she wants to go to a concert. A trip to look at colleges in North Carolina with some friends would be destined to be canceled. So her hunt continues.<\/p>\n

Chester keeps copies of her resume in her car and has a 30-second spiel memorized when she decides to pop into a restaurant or store and try to talk with a manager. She and her friends help ready one another when they set out on their job hunt, trading tips and professional-looking clothes from their closets. Positions that once sounded awful to her, like dishwashing, no longer seem so.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point,\u201d says the teen from Lake Mary, Florida, \u201cit would be hard to say no to anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Analyzing data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas found the number of jobs secured by teens fell 25% last summer from the year prior. The firm says inflation, oil prices and cautious hiring are likely to lead to even fewer jobs this year, resulting in the lowest summer hiring total for teens since the federal government began tracking it in 1948.<\/p>\n

Teens most commonly work in food preparation and serving jobs and sales, according to BLS data. But Jaune Little, director of recruiting services at the human resources company Insperity, says some entry-level jobs have been eliminated and teens now compete with more experienced candidates for the remaining ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the entry-level roles that once existed simply do not any longer,\u201d Little says. \u201cThose that do exist are on leaner teams that have less ability and desire to develop and train someone. In many instances, they are prioritizing more skilled workers even if they are overqualified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Max Stephenson began looking for a job last year after graduating from high school. Nothing turned up all summer. Once she began at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College, she got a work study position in the cafeteria, still keeping an eye out for a more permanent gig.<\/p>\n

Now, school\u2019s out again, and Stephenson is again jobless.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old from Little Rock, Arkansas, lost track of how many jobs she\u2019s applied for, but thinks it\u2019s somewhere between 50 and 100. She can\u2019t help thinking it\u2019s tougher than previous generations had it to find work paying around the minimum wage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be much easier than it\u2019s been,\u201d Stephenson says. \u201cOld people say, \u2018Just walk in there and give them a firm handshake.\u2019 That doesn\u2019t work so well now.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2022 report by Pew Research Center found summer employment of teens fell during the early 2000s dot-com bubble, and dropped even more during and after the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. White teens are more likely to have a job than teens from any other racial group, Pew found.<\/p>\n

Across demographics, though, teens are reporting difficult job searches, taking to Reddit and TikTok with rants about phantom postings, managers who ghost them and applications that go nowhere.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a struggle Connor Vukelich knows well.<\/p>\n

After he turned 16, he applied anywhere he could find in a 30-mile radius of his home near Vancouver, Washington. No offers followed and Vukelich\u2019s friends were similarly coming up empty-handed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s all these \u2018We\u2019re Hiring\u2019 signs but no one\u2019s actually hiring,\u201d Vukelich says. \u201cWhat\u2019s going on? Why can\u2019t any of us find jobs?\u201d<\/p>\n

When his search turned fruitless, he ended up working on his parents\u2019 lavender farm. But the frustration of the experience led Vukelich \u2013 who is now 20 and a student at Embry\u2013Riddle Aeronautical University \u2013 to launch Poppin\u2019 Jobs, an employment search site launched this year and aimed at teens and 20-somethings.<\/p>\n

Vukelich believes artificial intelligence is robbing teens of some potential jobs and that laws to boost the minimum wage in some states have pitted first-time job-seekers against more experienced candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t see the value in hiring someone without any experience,\u201d he says of employers, \u201cthey\u2019re not as willing to give someone that shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some teen applicants find painful job searches eventually pay off. Demie Njea, a 16-year-old from Lexington, Kentucky, started applying for jobs once she turned 14, her state\u2019s legal working age. A search centered on fast food spots and stores turned to one that included jobs as a janitor, daycare worker and more.<\/p>\n

Nothing went anywhere the first summer. Or the second. Njea estimates she applied for more than 100 jobs in all. She started wondering if she\u2019d ever get a first job.<\/p>\n

Finally, an offer came and Njea started working at Sonic. She is thrilled. But when a friend who turned 15 started applying for work, Njea had to be honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to calmly put her down and say, \u2018You\u2019re not going to get it,’\u201d Njea says. \u201cIt\u2019s just not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https:\/\/x.com\/sedensky<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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NEW YORK | Jaelyn Chester will wait your tables or stock your shelves. She\u2019ll wash your dishes or scrub your toilets. If only someone would give the 17-year-old a chance. \u201cI\u2019ve been looking everywhere,\u201d says Chester, an A+ student, high school basketball star and aspiring engineer who has blanketed her community with dozens of applications. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1101,1102,149,152,1103,1104],"tags":[4194,4195,4196,4197,4198,4199],"class_list":["post-2568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-0-no-apple-publish","category-1gridmagazine","category-a-town-magazine","category-sentinel-lifestyle","category-uncategorized","category-z-other-galley","tag-connor-vukelich","tag-demie-njea","tag-jaelyn-chester","tag-jaune-little","tag-max-stephenson","tag-nicole-bachaud"],"yoast_head":"\nEager to work, teens find a frustrating summer job search - Denver Moving Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2568\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eager to work, teens find a frustrating summer job search - Denver Moving Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NEW YORK | Jaelyn Chester will wait your tables or stock your shelves. 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