Monday, March 28, 2011

The Upside-Down Job Market

Today, Grandpa is more likely to work than a teenager.

The biggest changes in family life sometimes happen gradually. New employment data suggest one such seismic change is upon us: Job-holding patterns between the generations have turned upside down.

In the past, Grandma and Grandpa tended to retire to a life of leisure in their sixties, while teenagers were expected to work. As recently as 2000, boys ages 16 and 17 were far more likely to hold paying jobs than their grandparents ages 65 to 69.

But just a decade later, that picture has turned upside down: Grandpa is twice as likely to be working as Junior. Based on new research by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, Boston, 34% of senior men ages 60 to 69 hold paying jobs, compared with fewer than 15% of teenage males age 16 and 17. In the year 2000, the comparable employment numbers were 29% for senior men, and 34% for boys in their mid-teens.
While the picture is similar for females, adolescent girls are employed at a higher rate, of 16.9%, compared with 25.3% for women in their late 60s, says Andrew Sum, an economics professor at Northeastern and director of the center. In 2000, 35% of girls ages 16 and 17 were working, compared with just 19% of their grandmothers.

Today many job seeking teens are being told, “Don’t even bother to apply,” because some employers have hundreds of applications for the hourly jobs once dominated by teen workers, Dr. Sum says. Many adolescents have become discouraged and dropped out of the workforce. The problem is most pronounced in areas where kids are most in need of a paycheck, among lower-income families in big cities. In New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., fewer than 10% of high school students age 16 to 19 hold jobs.

In addition to Grandma and Grandpa taking the burger-flipping, car-washing and retailing jobs once dominated by teens, increasingly restrictive state labor laws have helped push minors under 18 out of the labor force. And teens from affluent families are spending more time in school or working in unpaid internships, part of the trend toward a later launch into adulthood.

The trend poses a dilemma for parents who want or need their teenagers to work, and it has been tough on kids too. I learned a lot from the back-office clerical work and camp counseling I did as a kid, but today’s teens may not get those experiences.

The trend has big implications for seniors too, of course. A new book entitled “The Big Shift,” by Mark Freedman, founder of Civic Ventures, which encourages older Americans to pursue new careers late in life, goes so far as to suggest naming an entirely new life stage, perhaps called the “encore years.”

Readers, have employment patterns in your family turned upside down? Do you have a senior member working in his or her sixties or seventies, an unemployed teenager, or both? 


What has been the impact? Is this shift a good thing, freeing teens and seniors alike to pursue diverse opportunities? Or could it prevent young people from developing a work ethic?

By Sue Shellenbarger


Read More Articles at Personal Business Advisors, LLC.

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