At the end of every school year, many teens begin their search for, or start, their summer job. And in 2023, just over one in every three teenagers aged 16 to 19 was in the labor force.
Typically, teen labor force participation has the most seasonal variation than that of other age groups. While this still holds true, there has been less variation in teen rates in recent years.
How many teens are in the labor force?
Of the 167 million people in the nation’s labor force in 2023, 3.81%, or approximately 6.36 million were teens. The percentage of teens in the labor force has changed over time, recently reaching its lowest rate since the 1940s.
Teen labor force participation was above 50% throughout most of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. It dipped below that in the early 2000s. Between 2000 and 2010, the rate fell from 52% to 35%. Notably, the rate dropped to 28.1% in April 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdown measures but has since risen.
How many teens join the labor force in the summer?
In summer 2023, about 42% of teens were in the labor force, compared to 35% during the rest of the year. Teen labor force participation traditionally spikes during the summer months — June, July, and August — when teens are no longer in school for eight hours a day.
Fewer teens are joining the summer labor force compared to previous decades. The gap between average summer and school year teen labor force participation has narrowed from a difference of 18.3% in the late 1960s to 6.5% in 2023, which could mean either more teens are working or looking to work during the school year or fewer are doing so during the summers.
What does the teen labor force look like?
Labor force participation is now similar for teen girls and boys, but this was not the case prior to the 2000s. In 2023, 37.4% of girls and 36.5% of boys were in the labor force. From 1948 to 2002, the participation gap between teen boys and girls steadily decreased from a difference of 21.7% to zero. Rates have remained relatively matched ever since, with slightly more teen girls than boys in the labor force.
But that’s not the only demographic variation: white teens had 2023’s highest annual average participation rate, of nearly 40%, compared to Asian teens’ low at around 23%, following a persistent pattern. The same year, average annual participation rates were 34% for Hispanic or Latino teens and 30% for Black or African American teens.
Hispanic or Latino teens tend to have more year-round employment with less seasonal variation compared to other racial groups. In 2023, between the school year and summer, the average Hispanic or Latino teen labor force participation rate increased about 3.5% compared to about 6.8% for white teens. Changes in participation for Black or African American and Asian teens were in between, increasing by 4.47% and 5.17%, respectively.
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