With school out, teens are faced with bleak prospects of summer jobs. The United States unemployment rate reached 8.5 percent in March 2009, making the search for a summer job more difficult than previous years.

Since late 2008, U.S. companies have cut 60,000 jobs per month, according to Labor Department statistics. Job losses are not only affecting the general workforce, but also seasonal employees, such as teenagers, who work during the summer to earn enough to pay their car insurance or college tuition.

Teenagers’ main competition for summer positions comes from newly laid-off workers who were dedicated employees at their previous jobs. These individuals are looking for any kind of employment to pay the bills, even if the job is seasonal.

Employers typically prefer workers with experience over teenagers with minimal resumes. Applications where “laid off” is the reason for leaving a previous job, are more attractive to employers than someone with little work experience.

Chief Executive Officer of employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, John A. Challenger stated, “Teens are competing not only with other members of their age group, but also with older, more experienced job seekers willing to accept positions for which they are most likely overqualified” (Washington Times).

While March’s unemployment rate reached 8.5 percent, it was only 4.3 for college graduates. For teens, however, unemployment is 21.7 percent.

Overqualified college graduates are filling jobs that used to be reserved for teens working part-time. The owner of Malek’s Pizza Place in Virginia said, “We put an ad on Craigslist, and we had such an unbelievable amount of responses, probably about 100” (ibid).

According to the president of consulting firm International Theme Park Services Inc., the number of submitted job applications is the highest in 15 years.

Even if a paid job is not available, career development consultants advise teens to continue expanding their skills through volunteer work. By missing a summer of gained experience, teenagers make it increasingly difficult to find work in future summers and employment after school.