Franchising Often Provides the Most Important Employment: The First Job

My teen wants to get a part-time job to earn some pocket money. I did a little research in my friend group and suddenly went down the rabbit hole of “what’s the impact to franchising?”, as I so often do. It’s not my imagination … fewer teenagers work in W-2 jobs now compared to when I went to high school.

Pew Research Center reports the total number of U.S. teenagers (ages 16-19) in W-2 jobs was around 5.5 and 6 million in both 1988 (when I was a high school senior working part time at my local Domino’s franchise) and in 2025. Because the total population has swelled over that time, the percentage of teenagers in the workforce has dropped dramatically. In the 1980s, according to Pew, nearly two in three teenagers worked. As recently as 2000, more than half of 16- to 19-year-olds worked at least part of the summer. By 2025, it was only one in three.

If there is a huge shift in the workforce, especially at the entry level, that translates to an impact on franchising and young people themselves. This shift is driven by family choices, the changing nature of work and rising operating costs. Franchising isn’t just a critical economic engine. It has also traditionally been a source of first jobs because so many franchises are service-oriented.

First jobs are an important stepping stone to adulthood. Employed teens learn how to show up on time, balance work and other commitments, and function as a team while serving customers. A 2014 study by the Employment Policies Institute found that part-time work during high school resulted in 20 percent higher earnings six to nine years after graduation.

Echoes of this positive effect continued in terms of higher earnings all the way into the workers’ mid-life career. The study found that for workers who were high school seniors in the late 1970s and early 1980s, 20 hours per week of work experience resulted later in annual earnings 7 percent higher compared to those who were not employed during their high school years. Studies also demonstrate that teens who have part-time jobs are more likely to graduate from high school.

There are many shifts happening here. Some teens must fulfill volunteer hours as part of their graduation requirements or are spending time on college test prep. Artificial intelligence also means the scope of entry-level work is changing or eliminating the need for some positions. Transportation may not be available or is prohibitively expensive. Families may prioritize other activities, such as sports.

Let’s talk about club travel teams. According to research by Ohio State University, participation in travel club sports has tripled from 1988 to 2025. Club sports have exploded into a $40 billion industry.

The National Federation of State High School Associations reports that 8.2 million high school students participate in athletics, of which 29 percent of girls and 24 percent of boys are involved in club sports. This is often in addition to, or running concurrently with, in-school teams.

My high school athlete participates in club volleyball, as well as school varsity team cross country and track.

For some families, club commitments on top of hours of homework every night wipe out the time available for teens to hold down paid jobs. But ask any college admissions officer and they will tell you they highly value teenage part-time work experience because it teaches life skills.

The impact of higher minimum wages on job creation or destruction is hotly debated, with research on both sides. Dr. Nicole Coomer of the Workers Compensation Research Institute and Walter Wessels at North Carolina State University found that when the minimum wage is increased by 10 percent, teen employment drops 11.1 percent. Looking at 16- to 17-year-olds, employment dropped 13 percent.

According to another EPI study, Nebraska’s teen unemployment more than doubled from May 2023 to May 2026 as the state raised its minimum wage from $9 to $15 an hour. In response, this July Nebraska passed a youth sub-minimum wage bill for non-emancipated employees who are 14 or 15 years old. Delaware does not allow a lower sub-minimum or youth training wage and has a teen unemployment rate between 16 to 21 percent, depending on seasonality. States with youth/training sub-minimum exemptions such as Idaho or Mississippi have some of the lower teen unemployment rates, around 6 percent.

In 2021, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to David Card for his research and contributions to labor economics. Card and his co-author Alan Krueger demonstrated in a landmark 1994 study that raising minimum wages did not lead to job losses. This work was used by the Fight for $15 campaign to argue that raising the minimum wage would not destroy jobs. The study asserted that businesses could absorb wage increases through price adjustments and improved productivity over time. But teens were not a specific carve-out in the study.

According to the EPI, 34 states and Washington, D.C. permit a lower minimum wage or exemptions for teen workers. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers can pay workers under the age of 20 a lower wage for the first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment. Said another way, this is age-based pay discrimination. And it’s a slippery slope when it comes to protecting workers.

Of course, we want to be sure our youngest workers are kept out of dangerous jobs, long hours, etc. But the fact remains that employers who hire workers who have never worked before bear a cost of training and expectation-setting that goes beyond standard new-hire training. This hits the franchise sector squarely in the face because the nature of franchising tends to lean more toward creating front-line service jobs.

Given the demonstrated value of teenage work experience to long-term career earnings, the franchise sector should continue to advocate for reasonable wage policies to build an employment on-ramp so we’re creating more jobs for teenagers who want them. There has to be a balance between small business operating costs and the effort required to train workers in their first job.

Alicia Miller is the founder and managing director of Emergent Growth Advisors. Her Development Savvy column covers smart ways to market and grow a franchise. She is also the author of “Big Money in Franchising.” Reach her at [email protected].