Younger And Older Teens See Split For Jobs In October 2026

Younger and older teens saw a split in their job fortunes in October 2026.

Americans Age 16 and 17 saw their seasonally adjusted numbers among the employed increase for the third consecutive month, with 2,028,000 counted as having jobs. It was the first time since March 2026 that the number of working teens reach 2 million or higher as the employment situation younger teens finally appears to be improving after a prolonged downtrend.

Younger teens have seen a better than quarter-million seasonally adjusted increase in their ranks of the employed since bottoming in July 2026.

By contrast, older teens, Age 18 and 19, saw their employment ranks decrease by 90,000 from September 2026's level. Some 3,466,000 members of the older teen demographic were employed in October 2026. Unlike younger teen however, older teens have been seeing their numbers see-saw between 3.4 and 3.6 million since June 2026 as their employment levels have been relatively stable.

The following pair of charts shows the monthly seasonally adjusted data for the working teen demographic from January 2020 through October 2026.