Why Teens Struggling In the Job Market Should Seek Self Employment

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Recent studies into the job market have shown teenagers as the group that is struggling the most. Bloomberg reports the May unemployment rate for teens between 16 and 19 as 14.3%. This is an improvement from 2009 where the teen unemployment rate rose to 27%. However, the amount of teenagers who are seeking work has drastically decreased. Despite the recovery of the economy, American teenagers are not eagerly filling out job applications anymore. As a matter of fact, the BLS predicts that the amount of working teenagers will drop 30 points lower by the year 2024. Although the abysmal numbers of working teens could be viewed as discouraging, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps this new trend will pave the way for the rise of self employment among teenagers.

Self employment is an amazing and richly fulfilling opportunity that is rarely shared with young people in any setting. The current education system does nothing to even present this option to teenagers. Today, America’s youth is encouraged to attend college, take on thousands of dollars of debt (which could take decades to pay off), and then go work for someone else. The current state of the job market is evidence of how this malpractice has utterly failed our young people. It is time for self employment to become mainstream.