Teenagers are shooting out over 50 applications and getting ghosted even for volunteer jobs: ‘I’ll take anything at this point’

Scooping ice cream, lifeguarding swimming pools, and restocking retail stores during the summer has long been teenagers’ rite of passage. For most, it’s the first time they build real-world skills and earn their own pocket change. But now, teens are up against the worst summer job market since the Great Recession. Landing a job at the back of a mom-and-pop shop feels almost as hard as scoring a full-time corporate role. 

“I didn’t know it was going to be this hard. I thought it was going to be quite easy. And with all the applications I sent through, I feel a bit discouraged,” Simon Chow, a 17-year-old who spent months applying to dozens of summer gigs, tells Fortune. “I’m looking everywhere, and I’ll take anything at this point.”

Around 790,000 jobs in May, June, and July of this year opened up for teenagers—down from around 801,000 gigs from 2025—according to a recent report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. And if the study’s prediction plays out, this stretch of summer would mark the lowest teen hiring since 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the data. Beyond the previous year, the only other time this figure dropped to a low this concerning was in 2010 (960,000), when the U.S. was reeling from the Great Recession. 

Now, teenagers are having to get crafty to land their minimum-wage summer gigs. Like many job seekers, they’re playing the numbers game, sending out dozens of applications only to be ghosted. Others are employing the old-fashioned strategy deployed by their parents, strutting up to storefronts with resume in hand and elevator pitch memorized. And after months of searching, some tough realities have become clear: landing a seasonal job in this market can require connections, experience, and the guts to put themselves out there. 

Teenagers across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., tell Fortune this year’s summer job market has been miserable—but some are finding a way in. 

Teens are applying to dozens of jobs and getting outright ghosted

The next generation of workers are trying........

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