“… While Pew provides a litany of explanations for the disappearance of the Great American Summer Job (yes, including students enrolling in summer travel enrichment programs to burnish college applications), it mainly boils down to the fact that these missing jobs are now occupied by adults. These are adults who ought to have a broader and deeper set of skills than teens, but who are unable to find a pathway to a better job.” …
There have been other threads about this topic. I live an hour away from a major city. All the local teens work. In fact, if they aren’t working, it’s because they don’t want to or are unable to. They work at local grocery stores, donut shops, camps, pools, restaurants and so forth. Maybe adults are taking these jobs in other parts of the country, but it’s certainly not universal.
It’s definitely a thing in my area. Only teens that work have to year round and likely aren’t college bound. We are an area of unemployed, low skilled workers. My older S applied everywhere and didn’t get a job. Finally, one told him “we aren’t going to hire someone to train to only stay 3 months when we have a city full of people who can work full time, year round.”. Try getting rejected (waitlisted) from a slew of Ivies/top 20s AND McDonald’s in the same month. It’s depressing. And from talking to other parents, it’s the same for everyone. And internship opportunities don’t exist either. Maybe a dozen total in various fields and they are staffed by out of town graduate students.