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When California-based psychologist and parenting<\/a> coach Becca Ballinger<\/a> saw her teen clients floundering after the pandemic, she often gave them a piece of solid advice: Get a summer job.<\/p>\n \u201cThe patients of mine that took me up on it just blossomed,\u201d she tells Fortune,<\/em> adding that it was especially beneficial for those who were depressed. \u201cThey now had something to get out of bed to do, and it made them feel that they had purpose. Plus, they loved the paycheck. I saw it was a really, really good thing for their mental health<\/a>, as well as their future stability.\u201d<\/p>\n While the advice may seem like a no-brainer to Boomer or Gen X<\/a> parents who scooped ice cream or worked retail in high school as a rite of passage, it bears repeating for teens today, who are less likely to get summer jobs than they were a generation or two ago\u2014due to a mix of jobs being automated or outsourced, plus a rise in college-focused summer classes<\/a>. In the summer of 1978<\/a>, for example, nearly 60% of teens were working or looking for work; that percentage has generally been on the decline ever since, seeing a steep drop-off after 2000, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>. In 2017, just 35% of teens<\/a> were working or looking for work.<\/p>\n But since the pandemic<\/a>, those numbers have been slowly climbing: In 2021, 36.6% of teens had a job for at least part of the summer, according to a Pew Research<\/a> analysis\u2014and, as of the May 2024 jobs report, 38% of kids 16 to 19 had a job or were looking for one.<\/p>\n \u201cMuch to my delight, the labor market for teens has grown stronger and stronger,\u201d Alicia Sasser Modestino<\/a>, research director at the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, tells Fortune. \u201cIt\u2019s all about supply and demand, because we came out of COVID and we were grappling with the \u2018take this job and shove it\u2019 economy \u2026 Employers rediscovered teenagers as a source of labor because they were desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s a very good thing, according to experts. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n \u201cI really love teen summer jobs for a number of reasons,\u201d Connecticut-based teen and adolescent psychologist Barbara Greenberg<\/a> tells Fortune. Including, she says, \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful for self-esteem<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The reason it\u2019s such an ego boost, she explains, is \u201cone, you are necessary, because they need you. You wake up and know you\u2019re needed at a place. Plus, you get reimbursed for your work.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of these factors, she sometimes finds that \u201ckids like their jobs better than they like school\u2014because they feel very necessary at their jobs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Plus, Ballinger says, \u201cIt puts them around responsible peers \u2026 and gets them out of the bubble where mommy and daddy are protecting them. They have to do things on their own and impress a boss who maybe won\u2019t give them slack, so they can learn to problem-solve.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt really helps their future careers as well,\u201d says Ballinger, who likes to use her daughter as an example: She worked at Chick-fil-A<\/a> during her last two years of high school, and when she went to college her food-industry experience helped her snag one of the higher paying campus cafeteria jobs. That led to being put in touch with the university\u2019s human resources director, who hired her to be her assistant. \u201cNow she\u2019s in law school and had to get a summer internship\u2014and while most of the first-year law students work for free, scrounging for something entry-level, she walked into a very well-paid higher experience law summer job at an HR<\/a> firm,\u201d due to that college experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe didn\u2019t plan to be in HR but she loves it now, and that job in high school opened doors for her in her later career\u2014something I\u2019ve seen with patients, too,\u201d she says. \u201cIt can open doors you cannot even imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n That tracks with the findings of an earlier study<\/a>, which looked at data of work history for over 256,000 Canadian young people. It found teens in part-time jobs progress to better-suited careers, as the early exposure to work helped them hone their preferences\u2014as well as enhance their soft skills, acquire better references, and learn how to job-hunt more successfully.\u00a0<\/p>\n Further, says Sasser Modestino, working helps youth learn more about the jobs they like and don\u2019t like. Her kids, for example, spent time working in a pasta factory one summer. \u201cIt\u2019s hard work\u2014you\u2019re standing up all day, wearing a hairnet.\u201d School suddenly looked a lot more fun. \u201cThat\u2019s a great motivator,\u201d she says. \u201cJust by having that on-the-job experience, you learn a lot about where you want to end up in life and what it takes to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n Earning their own money can help young people learn basic lessons about what things cost and how to budget for them. \u201cSuddenly, $40 or $60 for a top, they begin to understand,\u201d says Greenberg. \u201cIt teaches them the meaning of money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A 2023 OppLoans survey<\/a> of 1,000 young people aged 14-24, in fact, found that just landing the job was already helping them figure out how to budget. Of those who responded, 63% had a job lined up for the summer\u2014and planned to make an average of $4,037 by September and save 57% ($2,301) of it, mainly for living expenses (25%), tuition (20%), travel (18%), spending money (17%), helping out family (16%), and 4% \u201cother\u201d reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGetting your first paycheck is an incredible learning in terms of not only all paperwork it takes to get hired but also how to manage your money,\u201d says Sasser Modestino. \u201cThey\u2019re realizing when taxes get taken out and how to even cash the check\u2014a lot of times it\u2019s their first time setting up bank accounts and learning about direct deposit and how much to save.\u201d<\/p>\n Youth who get hired when school\u2019s out may do better academically once classes resume, according to a 2023 study<\/a> by Sasser Modestino,. It looked at the school performance of teens from low-income neighborhoods who won one of the 10,000 Boston Summer Youth Employment Program lottery slots to be matched with summer work\u2014typically at city agencies, nonprofits, camps, and parks\u2014and found that those who got jobs through the program were 7% more likely to graduate from high school on time and 22% less likely to drop out of high school during the four years after participating in the program relative to a control group (students not offered job slots). There was also a slight advantage (of 6.8%) in grade-point averages for those who had the jobs.<\/p>\n And while it was the structured, career-focused employment program jobs that seemed to have to most benefit in terms of adult mentors and practical lessons, \u201cWorking is better than not working,\u201d she says. \u201cSo even in the Summer Youth Employment Program, we have those entry-level, camp-counselor type jobs, but those are the jobs you need to have first to learn how to show up on time, how to work as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n\nTeen self-esteem<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Future career<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Budgeting<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Academic outcomes<\/strong><\/h2>\n