The Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 219,000 fewer teenagers working this May than it did in May last year. That is not a rounding error. It is roughly the working population of Birmingham — gone, in a single year, from the entry-level labour market that teenagers have occupied for generations.
This summer is shaping up to be the worst for teen hiring since federal tracking began in 1948. Young people are expected to gain around 790,000 jobs across the season — down sharply from 2025, and a figure that has economists reaching for historical comparisons they hoped to avoid. Seasonal categories in entertainment and leisure, the very categories that have always absorbed summer workers in their millions, announced just 8,261 hiring plans through April. Last year, the same figure was 28,000. That is a 70% collapse, in one year, in the sector most associated with first jobs.
The instinct is to blame teenagers. Screens, apathy, a generation raised without grit. That instinct is wrong.
