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Why don't teens have jobs?

AlvinofDiaspar said:
re: University - keep in mind that sky high tuition and living expenses relative to entry level P/T wages is a relatively new phenomenon of the past two decades. Boomers and early Gen-xers had it easy in that regard.

AoD
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Agreed - higher education costs were far lower back then, along with living costs (covered somewhat in that "why so many people still live at home" thread). It's unfair to compare this era with that of several decades earlier. I'd say that the future looks increasingly challenging for young people.
 
Avenue said:
So many of them do have jobs. Your research/survey lacks scientific validity.
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Goodness, I make no claims of scientific validity. I am making an inference based on my everyday observations plus existing knowledge about my kids, their peers and the kids my wife knows through her work. I imagine half the positions taken here at UT wouldn’t meet your standard. But let’s do a quick check of your own....

Avenue said:
I think there are extremely few abandoned/neglected buildings in Toronto by north american standards.
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Any research to support this position? I suggest it lacks scientific validity, but it’s still a valid inference made through your personal observation. Carry on.
 
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I have no issue w/anecdotal observations in this thread........

But since some want a bit more science............why not!

What has changed for young people in Canada?

www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca

First observation, from the above............the total percentage of youth declined from 1971-2011 from 19% of the population to 13%; thusly, if everything else remained constant (which it has not);
we would expect about 1/3 of jobs previously filled by youth to now be filled by someone older. Note that Statscan uses a demographic of age 15-24.

More on point, though from the U.S. is a document looking at youth employment in age 16-19 demographic since 1948.

1574861255952.png


That's from here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/27/teen-summer-jobs-in-us/

For the purpose of the @Admiral Beez observation from his own youth in the late 80s/early 90s; one would see a decline in the percentage of teens holding year-round jobs, from 43 to 29 today; while the percentage holding
summer jobs would have gone from 52 to 35% (all figures rounded).

****

Now here we get to some juicy bits...................look at what a bunch of those teens have been up to since 1990..........

1574861970616.png



That's from here: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5884085/the-disappearing-teen-summer-job

We can see summer participation in some form of school has spiked from in/about 20% in 1990 to over 50% by 2009.

From here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/american-teens-dont-want-to-work-2014-05-01

We see a steady increase in teens who don't want a job. Its worth saying that many of these same teens would now be the ones in school during the summer.

1574862143430.png


The correlative decrease in labour force participation by teens, by my reading (using the US data) is actually lower than the increase in summer class/education rates.

So there we go.......anecdotes no more.

Based on US data; teen employment is down substantially from 3 decades ago.

The number of teens is also down substantially, as a proportion of the population making the drop appear more pronounced than it actually is..........

Most of the decline in teen employment seems to correlate with higher rates of educational uptake, including during the summer months.

Finally, youth employment was much lower in the past than many might perceive; even in 1980, some 30% of teens did not have a summer job.
 
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Northern Light said:
I have no issue w/anecdotal observations in this thread........

But since some want a bit more science............why not!

What has changed for young people in Canada?

www150.statcan.gc.ca www150.statcan.gc.ca

First observation, from the above............the total percentage of youth declined from 1971-2011 from 19% of the population to 13%; thusly, if everything else remained constant (which it has not);
we would expect about 1/3 of jobs previously filled by youth to now be filled by someone older. Note that Statscan uses a demographic of age 15-24.

More on point, though from the U.S. is a document looking at youth employment in age 16-19 demographic since 1948.

View attachment 217364

That's from here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/27/teen-summer-jobs-in-us/

For the purpose of the @Admiral Beez observation from his own youth in the late 80s/early 90s; one would see a decline in the percentage of teens holding year-round jobs, from 43 to 29 today; while the percentage holding
summer jobs would have gone from 52 to 35% (all figures rounded).

****

Now here we get to some juicy bits...................look at what a bunch of those teens have been up to since 1990..........

View attachment 217365


That's from here: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5884085/the-disappearing-teen-summer-job

We can see summer participation in some form of school has spiked from in/about 20% in 1990 to over 50% by 2009.

From here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/american-teens-dont-want-to-work-2014-05-01

We see a steady increase in teens who don't want a job. Its worth saying that many of these same teens would now be the ones in school during the summer.

View attachment 217366

The correlative decrease in labour force participation by teens, by my reading (using the US data) is actually lower than the increase in summer class/education rates.

So there we go.......anecdotes no more.

Based on US date; teen employment is down substantially from 3 decades ago.

The number of teens is also down substantially, as a proportion of the population making the drop appear more pronounced than it actually is..........

Most of the decline in teen employment seems to correlate with higher rates of educational uptake, including during the summer months.

Finally, youth employment was much lower in the past than many might perceive; even in 1980, some 30% of teens did not have a summer job.
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Thanks for this info, it puts a lot of perspective on what I was seeing. My kids and many of their mates have been in summer school since Grade 9, upgrading or fast tracking. I’m not pushing them to work, education is their only responsibility.
 
I remember my first job when i was a teenager, my dad got me a job at a factory he worked at. Hard to believe that was over 20 years ago and i was making $16 an hour! Back then the weekend shifts and the summer months were full of students.
Of course now a days a lot of factory jobs require a high school diploma and are mostly all minimum wage jobs you get through a temp agency.
 
Bloody hell, I've been working the same job since I was 14. 1999. Seems like a lifetime ago. Retirement set for age 45 in another 11 friggin years...if the stress of dealing with entitled idiots doesn't kill me first.

Kids these days don't know how good they have it. ;) :p

Edit: Actually it's only 10 years away so I may make it after all. I'll even hand my position to a teen in need when I go. Keep the cycle of down-trodden labour going.
 
Johnny Au said:
I haven't had paid employment when I was a teen. I had no interest.

I had paid employment since I got my Bachelor's Degree from the University of Toronto in 2011 (albeit as a research assistant at Holland Bloorview (casual employment)).
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Sounds interesting to me. What are you currently helping with at work? And what'd you go to school for?
My sister went to Holland Bloorview after her brain surgery when she was wee. I remember the place fondly...I guess mostly for making her functional again (she had to learn to walk and talk and all that all over again at the age of 6).
 
Employers don't want to employ kids because of laws. That's why we see 20 and 30 year olds starring in movies as teenagers. Notice the lack of acne among the actors?

(Fixed typo. Should pay a teenager to proofread it, instead of the spellchecker.)
 
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SunriseChampion said:
Sounds interesting to me. What are you currently helping with at work? And what'd you go to school for?
My sister went to Holland Bloorview after her brain surgery when she was wee. I remember the place fondly...I guess mostly for making her functional again (she had to learn to walk and talk and all that all over again at the age of 6).
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I work in the Autism Research Centre primarily for data entry. Yes, I have autism myself.

Note that I specialize in human geography when I was a student at the University of Toronto.
 
Videodrome said:
Our oldest kid is 15 and I don't think he can get a job with most places.
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Hey man, that could be a good thing.

When I was in university, I applied to work at several bullshit places like Tim Hortons and various retail nonsense. Didn't even get a call back. No matter, I ended up working at a foreign embassy (of a country I have citizenship of) as the assistant to the commercial attache, doing boring clerical stuff but also writing economic reports and doing three language translating! Super cool job, got to go to all sorts of function around Ottawa and hob nob with all sorts of foreign generals and ambassadors and whatnot and whonow.

I'm the better (and snobbier!) for not ever having been hired by a minimum wage retail employer, I reckon.
 
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