Summer grim for U.S. teen job-hunters

BOSTON, May 3 (UPI) -- The summer job market for U.S. teenagers is likely to be the worst since the early 1980s recession, USA Today reported Monday.

"If anything like this happened to the adult workforce, you'd call it a depression -- it's that severe," said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

The annual teen employment rate tumbled from 45 percent in 2000 to 37 percent last year -- lowest since the figure was first tracked in 1948, according to an analysis by the center.

Sum said companies are more likely to hire unemployed adults, seniors and new immigrants for entry-level jobs that traditionally went to teens, and many cash-strapped cities and states have cut funding for summer teen job programs.

"Teens will compete with older workers more than they have in the past," said Jared Bernstein, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute. "Employers will hire back older workers who were laid off before they look for the usual summer hires."