Center for Labor Market Studies Publications Archive

The paper will begin with a brief review of the employment concepts and measures underlying all of the employment estimates appearing in this paper and the data sources used to generate these teen employment rate estimates. Trends in the employment rates of the teens of the nation from the summer of 1979 through the summer of 2005 will be presented and analyzed. We will show that the summer 2005 employment rate for teens tied the summer of 2004 as the lowest on record since 1948 when the national, CPS historical employment data series for teens begins. We will supplement findings on overall employment developments for teens in the past summer with a more detailed look at who worked in the summer of 2005. Employment rates for teens during the summer of 2005 will be presented for gender, race-ethnic, household income, and a wide array of geographic subgroups, including teens residing in individual states in the Jobs for America's Graduates (JAG) network. The final four sections of the paper will provide a projected outlook for teen employment prospects this summer, present and explain estimates of the potential number of teens that would be employed under three different labor market scenarios, and discuss the implications of these findings for the operation and management of JAG Senior Year and Multi-Year Programs.

This report was published in April 2006 and was prepared for Jobs for America's Graduates, Alexandria, VA. by the Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.