May 26, 2005

They take the jobs teens won't do. Or something.

From the article "Finding summer job is no child's play. Teens have to slog to find work, more so in some states":

Employment rates for younger Americans have been falling steadily, hitting a historic low last year and likely to be about as low this summer. An expected improvement in teen jobs has failed to materialize even as the overall job picture has brightened.

Teens, facing stiff competition from older workers, immigrants and college kids, will fare about as well this summer as they did last summer, predicted Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

About 36.7% of U.S. teens age 16 to 19 will work this summer, Sum said, just about matching the 36.1% of teens employed last summer, which was the lowest rate in 57 years...

"Teens really benefit a lot when employers add a lot of jobs," [Sum] said. And because of a stable influx of older workers, immigrants and young adults age 20 to 24, "employers just haven't had to reach back that far in the queue to reach the kids..."

Why are we giving low-wage jobs to people from another country, when we could be giving them to our own citizens? And, is how socially healthy is this situation? Shouldn't teenagers get crap job experience as part of their development?

Previously: "[Illegal aliens] do the jobs that even blacks won't do."

Posted to Immigration2005a at May 26, 2005 05:08 PM

Comments

"Employment rates for younger Americans have been falling ..."
then
"About 36.7% of U.S. teens age 16 to 19 will work this summer, Sum said, just about matching the 36.1% of teens employed last summer..."

FYI: this indicates that the employment rate is rising, not falling. Helloooo!? McFlyyyyyyy?!?!

Posted by: Ralph at May 27, 2005 02:57 AM

"rising, not falling"

You seem to have a forest/trees problem.

According to this:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/wm406.cfm

[Where Have All the Youngsters Gone?

Among teens, the participation rate peaked at 59 percent in 1978 and has trended down by 3 percent per decade. The rate dropped dramatically by 10 percent over the last three years.]

Teen employment has fallen dramatically over the last couple of decades or so.

It's rather easy to find other corroborating data on this.

Now, I'm no mathematician -- wait a minute, yes I am! -- but I think that if you graph 59% in '78 vs 36% (roughly) today, you get a line with a rather obvious negative slope, which means teen employment has, as an overall trend, fallen markedly since the late '70s. One would think that even you wouldn't try to dismiss this as insignificant; but you never know.

Now, while the reasons for this may indeed be many, in this particular context, it does not seem unfair to point out that this big decline in teen employment has occurred during the same time period the US experienced a huge influx of unskilled third world immigrants (a large number of them here illegally), many of whom we all know (all of us who visit fast food joints, anyway) compete for the kinds of jobs American teens typically held in the past. It's probably also true that your average wanna-be-cool teen is not thrilled about grilling burgers next to a thirty something Mexican (i.e. a 'loser') who doesn't speak English. So in this sense the demographic shift, along with wages held down by a large supply of workers, has probably helped turn some jobs into more or less 'jobs Americans no longer want to do'.

Posted by: eh at May 27, 2005 09:42 AM

You use the participation rate. The rate of employment considers those in the workforce, not all individuals.

The actual rate of employment for the 16-19 age group is lower now than it was 19 years ago.

If you want to talk about participation rate, then go talk about participation rate. Write an article on that and then solicit comments.

Posted by: Ralph at May 27, 2005 10:08 AM