"The Disappearance of Teen Jobs"
- PastorMark
- Feb 17
- 5 min read
—and Why It Matters Spiritually
I still remember the smell of the mall before the doors officially opened. If you worked in one, you know the smell. Floor cleaner, the smell of soft pretzels, stale coffee, and whatever else the food court was warming up in the morning. My first truly meaningful job was at a fast-food place in the mall called Tijuana Taco. I was a teenager and I worked there with my sister, who was the assistant manager.
She took the job seriously. I learned to.
I prepped onions and peppers, used industrial grease solvents (probably now banned due to EPA regs) and deep cleaned EVERYTHING. I also dealt with customers who were way too intense about tacos. I learned how to show up on time, when I didn’t feel like it, and I learned how to listen to someone in authority who wasn’t my parent. I also learned how to work alongside people I wouldn’t have chosen as friends.
At the time, I thought I was just earning spending money. Looking back now, I realize that job was shaping me.
It gave me confidence and perspective, and it gave me my first real taste of responsibility—when the stakes were still low enough to mess up and learn. I didn’t know it then, but God was using a mall food court to form something in me.
That’s why a recent deep dive into teenage employment stopped me in my tracks. Because jobs like that—the kind that quietly shape teenagers, are disappearing. And not for the reasons we usually assume.
The Summer Job and Teens
For most of American history, having a summer job was simply part of being a teenager. In the late 1970s, nearly three out of four teens worked during the summer. Entry-level jobs were everywhere: fast food, pools, retail, amusement parks. Work wasn’t optional; it was expected.
Did you know that today, fewer than 35% of teenagers hold summer jobs. (1) Which means if your teen does have a job, you should probably take a picture, it’s basically a rare wildlife sighting now.
That’s not just a shift in behavior. It’s a cultural transformation. And contrary to popular belief, this isn’t about laziness, phones, or some sudden collapse of work ethic. The reality is far more complex and far more revealing about how we’re raising kids.
The Summer Job Shift (ha, a well placed dad joke)
Over the past few decades, several things happened at once. Older adults stayed in or returned to the workforce, often taking the same entry-level jobs teens once held. Immigrant labor increased, filling roles year-round instead of seasonally. Employers discovered it was cheaper and easier to hire adults who could work longer hours with fewer restrictions. Automation replaced entire categories of entry-level work, especially in retail and food service.
At the same time, laws and insurance costs made teenage employees more expensive and more complicated to hire. But here’s the part that matters most for parents: teenagers didn’t just get pushed out of jobs. They stopped looking for them. In the mid-1990s, about one in five teens who weren’t working said they wanted a job. Twenty years later, that number dropped below one in ten.
Why?
Because childhood and adolescence have changed.
Safer than Ever
Despite how dangerous the world feels, it’s statistically safer for teenagers than it’s been in decades. And yet, many of us are parenting as if our kids are growing up in a war zone. We track them constantly. We manage their schedules tightly. We invest enormous amounts of money making our homes comfortable, safe, and entertaining.
Add seven hours a day of screens, highly competitive college admissions, and endless “enrichment” opportunities, and suddenly, leaving the house to work a low-paying job doesn’t feel necessary or appealing.
As parents, many of us unintentionally reinforce this. We tell our kids, explicitly or implicitly, that working a summer job won’t help their future as much as camps, programs, travel teams, or resume-building experiences. Here’s the irony: college admissions counselors consistently say they would rather see a student who held a steady job than one who cycled through expensive enrichment programs.
But the deeper issue isn’t college.
It’s formation.
When Protection Replaces Formation
As Christian parents, we care deeply about who our kids are becoming, not just what they’re achieving. Scripture consistently teaches that character is formed through responsibility, endurance, humility, and service. “Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3–4). Those qualities rarely grow in comfort.
A first job is often a teenager’s first real encounter with adversity that isn’t cushioned by family. It’s where they learn how to handle frustration, correction, difficult people, boredom, authority, and money. It’s where they discover that their presence matters—that other people are counting on them to show up. Sociologists sometimes refer to this as learning “earned confidence”—the kind that only comes from being trusted with real responsibility and discovering you can handle it. When those experiences disappear, something important goes with them.
We’re now seeing young adults enter their twenties without ever having held a job, without learning how to navigate workplace expectations, and without the confidence that comes from doing hard things well.
Employers increasingly report interviewing young adults whose parents come with them. That’s not a punchline. It’s a warning sign. When discomfort and accountability are delayed long enough, dependence quietly replaces maturity.
Even more troubling, the kids who would benefit most from early work experience—those from lower-income households—are now the least likely to have access to it. Meanwhile, higher-income families increasingly recognize the value of work and intentionally help their teens find opportunities anyway. The result is an upside-down reality: the teens who most need formative responsibility are often the ones most protected from it.
That should grieve us. Because work, at its best, is not just economic. It’s deeply human. And often, deeply formative. Long before work was about income, Scripture describes it as part of God’s design for shaping people—teaching stewardship, diligence, and faithfulness in small things.
I’m not suggesting every teenager needs a job at fourteen. I’m not romanticizing exhaustion or over-scheduling. And I’m certainly not saying work replaces rest, family, or faith.
But I am asking us to consider some important questions:
What if a summer job isn’t a distraction from discipleship—but a tool for it?
What if responsibility, even small responsibility, is one of the big ways God grows maturity?
What if protecting our kids from hardship is quietly costing them growth?
That taco shop in the mall wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t spiritual in the obvious sense. But God used it anyway. He used it to teach me how to show up, how to listen, how to work hard, and how to take myself, and others, seriously. It also helped me navigate temptation and learn discernment while I was still close enough to my parents to ask questions, make mistakes, and be guided through them.
Looking back, I’m grateful my parents didn’t rescue me from that experience. Sometimes the most formative places in our kids’ lives aren’t classrooms, camps, or conferences. Sometimes it’s a register, a mop, a time clock, and a boss who expects them to be there on time.
And sometimes, that’s holy ground.
-Pastor Mark
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