Job Seeker Blog - Spark Hire

Young Adults Drifting Away From Summer Jobs

Everyone is well aware of the struggles recent graduates are facing with the job market, but has anyone thought of young high schooler’s and current college student’s struggle with the job market? The following infographic suggests that as the years press on, young adults are working less and less in the summer.

Often times, young adults aged 16-24 look to the summer to snag a job to earn extra cash. As the infographic below from Visual.ly and Course Hero shows, 48.9 percent of young workers in 2012 were hired by July. However, the number of young adults looking for work in the summer has dropped significantly since 1989, showing that it’s not simply a job market influenced issue. In 1989, 89 percent of young males were looking for work. That number dropped to 62.7 percent in 2010. Following the same trend, 72.4 percent of females looked for work in ’89 and in 2010 the percentage was at 58.1.

While the job market is certainly a large contribution to the drop, experts also suggest that the number of young adults applying and going to college has increased significantly. This suggests that instead of scrambling to find a summer job and earn some extra cash, young adults are using their summer to prepare for college.

The infographic not only shows the dismal statistics of young adults in the summer job market, but also gives us some insight into what the highest paying summer jobs for this age group are. The number one highest paid summer job seems to be a Computer Lab Assistant, earning an hourly average of around $21.78. Next on the list was an Administrative Assistant earning $19.57 an hour on average. Earning the least amount of income was the age-old babysitter position with an hourly average of $7.17-$9.21.

SOURCE: Visual.ly
IMAGE: Visual.ly

Nicole Nicholson

Nicole is the Content Editor for Spark Hire and mainly writes for and edits the work for the Spark News blog. She graduated in 2010 with a BA in Journalism from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. She has a passion for writing, editing, and pretty much anything to do with content. In her free time she frequents the Chicago music scene and writes reviews on shows for her own personal blog. Connect with Nicole and Spark Hire on Facebook and Twitter

Add comment