Orange County Register

Summer hiring nationwide of teens ages 16 to 19 is running a little ahead of last year, despite major job losses as a whole, according to a new analysis.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an international outplacement firm that follows employment trends, notes employers nationwide hired 111,000 teens in May and 698,000 in June, for a total of 809,000 jobs added so far this summer. That's about 10,000 more than for the same period last year.

In California, teen hiring has been trending down with 527,000 16-19-year-olds on payrolls in May compared to 535,000 in April. However, there is usually a spurt in teen hiring in June.  California's June numbers won't be released until Friday, July 17.

Challenger says employers nationwide added 355,000 teen workers in July of last year for a total of 1,154,000 on the three traditional summer -hiring months.  That was the lowest since 1954, when only 976,000 teens were added to payrolls, Challenger says. (Click on image above to enlarge the chart.)

“While summer hiring among teens is by no means robust, it has been stronger than expected, particularly in light of this recession’s impact on retailers, restaurants, tourist destinations, and other businesses that are typically the biggest recruiters of teenagers during the summer months,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive of the company. "Unless there is severe drop-off in teen hiring in July, we should surpass the 1,000,000 threshold, although that is probably little consolation to the millions of teens who were unable to find summer jobs."

He advised teens who have been turned down not to give up, noting some retailers may add staff for back-to-school sales or need to replace workers who didn't work out. Some jobs also may open up later in the summer and in the fall when college students leave to return to school.

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Read Challenger's full analysis HERE.

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