1996 Summer Employment and Unemployment Among Youth — 1996-09-19

The number of employed youth increased by 2.6 million from April to July- -the traditional summertime peak--the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This seasonal expansion in employment of 16- to 24-year-olds was the same as that of a year earlier. The number of unemployed young people, which also grows at this time every year, rose by 603,000. (Because the focus of this analysis is the seasonal changes in youth employment and unemployment that occur every spring and summer, the data are not adjusted for seasonality.) The 16- to 24-year old labor force--those working or actively looking for work--expands sharply between April and July each year, as large numbers of high school and college students search for summer jobs and recent graduates look for permanent employment. This summer, the youth labor force rose by 3.2 million, to a total of 23.7 million in July.