May 25, 2026
Summer is just around the corner, and while you might expect to see your neighborhood teens scooping ice cream, scanning your movie tickets or driving your golf cart, it’s less likely than you’d expect.
According to a new analysis from employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, 790,000 teens are expected to get jobs this summer, down even further from last summer’s record low of 801,000 last summer. This would make summer 2026 the lowest summer hiring total for teens since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the data in 1948.
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The previous low for teen summer jobs was 932,000, in 1949. And the lowest point since was 960,000, in 2010, during the recovery from the Great Recession.
Speaking to CBS News, Andy Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said, “We are seeing lower participation in the workforce from teenagers, so it’s a combination of lower supply of those jobs and less demand from teenagers wanting summer positions.”
AI, older workers and economic uncertainty
So, why the lack of teen summer jobs? Well, it could be associated with many factors impacting the economic landscape right now.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas suspect that AI and automation, older workers staying in jobs longer, and overall economic uncertainty due to things like inflation and oil prices could be culprits.
The rise of AI means some entry-level jobs are being replaced. Some people are even getting more comfortable with AI customer service agents.
According to PolyAI’s AI in customer service trends report in 2025, when asked if an AI-generated voice could replace human customer service representatives, 79% of customer service and contact center leaders said yes.
But it’s not just AI that teens have to compete with. Older workers are often competing for the same part-time or seasonal rules as teens. Adults, though, have more experience and more time availability throughout the year. According to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management, on average, nearly one in five people ages 65 and older participated in the labor force as of April 2025.
To top it all off, persistent inflation and high oil prices are making costs higher for restaurants and retailers — places that you teens might typically get a summer job — leaving less room in the budget for summer hires.
“These are all areas of the economy that typically have a big surge of work in the summers, but it’s been an area that we’ve not seen hiring robustly, so we think that’s going to hurt teenagers,” Challenger told CBS.
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Em Norton is a Content Specialist at moneywise.com. They have been with the company since 2022.
