Teenagers hoping to hold the whistle as a lifeguard or camp counselor, or just work any job this summer are having a hard time getting hired.

“They now have more competition. There may be fewer jobs available,” says Brad Hershbein, an economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. “They kind of get stuck with the short straw.”

Many factors are contributing to the competition for entry-level jobs: AI, inflation, tariffs, even those oil tankers stuck in the Persian Gulf. But all signs are pointing to 2026 being the worst job market for teens in decades.

“So many people are increasingly desperate to find a job, any job, especially if they have college loans,” Hershbein says. “That makes it that much harder for someone younger to be able to compete.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 219,000 fewer teens working this May compared to last May. Their participation in the labor force has been sliding since a peak of nearly 58% in the 1970s. Today, about a third of teens are in the labor force, either working or looking for summer work.

Mariella Silva, 19, had to hustle before finding a summer job as a barista at Zeke’s Coffee, a roastery and coffee shop in Washington, D.C.

She says now that she’s working, she feels more grown up. She is learning from her older coworkers and starting to understand and appreciate the value of money. She says, “Every time I spend something, I’m like, oh, this is like two hours of work.” She says she really feels the pinch of inflation when she considers whether to buy a meal out in the world, “I’m like, hmm. . . there’s food at home.”

Her boss, Jesse Lauritsen, doesn’t actually hire many teens. For starters, their schedules are hard to accommodate. Teens often have school or sports commitments and are new to the idea of carving out big chunks of time for work shifts.

“If they can only work one day a month, there’s no point in really hiring them,” Lauritsen says.

Economist Brad Herschbein notes that hiring managers may view teens as an investment that won’t pay off right away. “It’s almost a community service, rather than getting that productivity right away,” he says.

The dwindling job opportunities for teenagers means that plenty of them won’t get their first workforce experience while they’re still young, he adds. “A growing share of 18- to 19-year-olds are neither employed nor in school. They’re not really engaged in child care either.”

Economists call such people “idle.” It’s a strong term, but might be accurate, according to time-use surveys.

“They do seem to be engaging in a lot of leisure,” says Hershbein “The quintessential stereotype is, you know, someone’s playing video games all day.”

That pattern doesn’t just worry their parents. Many cities and school districts are trying hard to line up job opportunities for young people.

At a community pool in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Gayle Hurn hires over a hundred lifeguards and swim instructors every summer: She says she’s got a roster full of teenagers from around the city. “I think we need to start viewing teens as a really important part of the infrastructure of the workplace.”

Hurn says everyone who visits the pool feels the joy that her young workers bring to their job, even if she admits that teenagers can be hard to manage. “It’s my job to help them not just get a paycheck, but really build them so that when they move on from me, they can be super successful and really great contributors to whatever other work environment they join.”

Hurn makes them put away their phones, she works around their vacation schedules and she helps them through difficult conversations.

Happily, she adds, her teen employees are totally worth it.