Today's job report showed an unexpected surge in hiring last month. The leisure and

hospitality sector has been growing at a steady clip and added over 42,000 jobs and

encouraging prospect for teenagers who are looking for job this summer.

And teen jobs overall have been making a comeback.

After a decades-long decline that began in the early 2000s, Gen Z is reversing the trend. The percentage of 16 to 19 year olds who had a job

or were looking for one hit a high of 38 percent in May. To discuss the rise in teenage

employment I'm joined now by Alicia Modestino, associate

professor in Northeastern University in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs.

Welcome and thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

So other than a dip in the pandemic, teen employment rates have kind of been increasing incrementally

since 2013, but this 38% figure is something we haven't seen since 2009. What's behind that?

Yeah, exactly. So we've been seeing as we're coming out of the pandemic an increase every summer in particular among teens age 16 to 19

where their labor force participation so going out looking for a job getting

hired has been increasing every summer as we're recovering from the

pandemic and so we're seeing rates around 38% as you mentioned which are four

percentage points higher even than what we saw prior to the pandemic.

And so this really is a evidence of the strong hiring demand

that we've seen coming out of the pandemic,

as well as adults moving into other jobs, freeing up those entry-level positions for

younger workers. So strong hiring demand on one side but among teens are these

folks who are joining the labor market for you know summer jobs and summer cash or more out of necessity.

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