Shaved ice shacks, lifeguarding, mowing lawns, paper routes … gigs that were long seen as rites of passage for teenagers became less and less of a priority for kids and their parents after the financial crash of 2008.

But Mindspire is here to make the argument that with more employers willing to hire teens, a wider variety of opportunities both online and off, and compelling data that a summer job can help teens’ mental health, it’s a great season to dust off that first résumé.

Statistics on Teen Summer Jobs

Current employment rates for teens have risen noticeably since 2020. With 38% of teenagers either currently working or looking for work, those numbers have risen to the highest level in a decade.

This chart combines high school students and college-aged young adults, and shows the cliff dive of 2020 for employment among this group. However, the rebound in jobs was fast, and every year of the 2020s has been stronger for youth employment than the latter half of the 2010s.

The most common industries for teen summer jobs include working in restaurants, retail, and recreation. Wage growth for these industries was particularly strong after COVID, so many teens are finding that even flipping burgers could be worth the extra cash. But there are more avenues for high-achieving teens to earn money than ever before, including remote work and internships that didn’t exist 25 years ago.

Advantages of Summer Jobs for Teens

Financial upside

There are direct financial benefits to working, whether it’s to contribute to a car, education expenses, or “fun” money. Locations with larger families often encourage teenagers to work to contribute to the family budget, which may explain why Utah (Mindspire’s newest location!) has the highest rate of teenagers with summer jobs.

Learning budgeting and money management is a skill more and more parents and teens themselves are clamoring for — in a world with apps like Robinhood and rising higher ed expenses, Gen Z wants to be better-informed about the money world.

Social benefits

As the big red line above shows, if you’re 16 this summer, you were 12 during the lockdowns —and lots of research shows that tweens and teens suffered. We are confident in the resilience of this generation, but there’s no denying that one of the tangible benefits of that first barista or lawn-mowing gig is getting out of the house and socializing.

Jonathan Haidt has made a compelling argument that way too much screen time is damaging not just teenagers’ mental health, but their ability to learn. Until schools and social mores get caught up, having the phone off because your teen is watching the kids as a lifeguard is a great way to mitigate the affects of phone addiction.

Future employability

Different cultural and familial norms will dictate what teens do in a typical summer — whether your child is involved in travel, music camps, watching younger siblings, or (an increasingly common option) summer school will dictate how many hours he or she can dedicate to being on the clock.

But many employers are looking for skills in their hiring, not just pedigree — if your kid is a computer nerd, having them do some part time remote website design could be a great way to decide if software engineering could be a good fit. Sales-oriented teens have more opportunities to leverage social media than ever to sell merch and services. Many of us here at Mindspire discovered a love of tutoring by working with kids in summer camps or in schools as teens! Remember, the goal of getting into a good university involves being able to juggle many hats at once — this is a good thing to get used to when Mom and Dad are still providing food and shelter.

Summer Jobs and Highly Selective Colleges

“I value anything that provides exposure to a potential career path, so students have a purpose for studying their field and are motivated to tie their education to their future plans,” says Greg Kaplan, college counselor and author of Earning Admission: Real Strategies for Getting Into Highly Selective Colleges.

Some anecdotal perspective on the pros of different kinds of jobs: your author had both service and skilled gigs in the 16-24 age range, from scrubbing toilets to Tex Mex restaurant hostess to genetics assistant to a marketing internship. (This was, as it happens, just before and just after the 2000s decline.)

During the school year in high school, I was, like many top-achieving students, too busy with schoolwork and extracurriculars to realistically hold down a job. But I’m glad I started to get experience in the “real” world (even if that world was mostly my college campus) as soon as I moved out — compared to my peers who never worked, I had more experience navigating interviews, was more comfortable asking for references for graduate school and career-level jobs, and became better at juggling multiple priorities. By the time I was in my final semester of college, I had a full load of classes, a writing gig, a job working a desk at the library, and a tutoring job.

Allowing your own kid to similarly try different fields to see what’s a fit is one of the best things you can do to help support them in the transition to adulthood.

Call to Action: Prepping for All Parts of Life

At Mindspire, we are proud of our students when they seek summer employment — we know it’s not 1978 anymore, but there are still plenty of creative opportunities to find ways to get out of the house (or connect online) and expand your skillset.

One of the best tips to finding work you’d enjoy is to connect with professionals in the field you’re interested — it’s a rite of passage for pre-med teenagers to volunteer at a hospital, for future educators to pick up shifts at a day care, for engineering-minded kids to tinker in their garage, and for entrepreneurs to try selling lemonade or Lululemons online.

These days, you can now use a platform like LinkedIn to learn more about leaders in your field; tech savvy teens may even want to build a landing page if they are working in tech. Remember, whether your child is asking what the html shortcut is or if you want fries with that, it’s important to support their endeavors. Make sure the job is reputable (looking over the hiring paperwork to make sure your teen is allowed to work legally is smart), and have an open dialogue if their schedule feels too stretched.

They may just discover one of the most valuable lessons of late adolescence — a newfound sense that they can solve problems and can be equipped to thrive in the brave new world of “adulting.”

Reach out if you’re interested in discussing your student’s tutoring needs — we’re always flexible in working around your time commitments.

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