Summer jobs have been teenagers’ rite of passage for generations—from scooping ice cream and babysitting, to lifeguarding and bagging groceries. But as a hiring freeze has taken over the labor market, high schoolers are feeling the chill. So far 2026 is shaping up to be the worst summer job market in nearly eight decades.
Teenagers will gain around 790,000 jobs in May, June, and July of this year—down 801,000 from 2025—according to a recent report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. And if the prediction plays out in the coming months, it would mark the lowest summer of teen hiring since 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the data. Beyond the previous year, the only other time this figure dropped to a steep trough was in 2010 (960,000) as the U.S. was reeling from the Great Recession.
