April 28, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Employment of high school students rises by grade

Work activity for high school students was substantially higher at each successive grade attended in the years from 1997 through 2003.

[Chart data—TXT]

Forty-one percent of high school freshmen worked during the school year or following summer, compared with 65 percent of sophomores, 79 percent of juniors, and 87 percent of seniors.

Among high school freshmen and sophomores, young men were more likely to work than were young women. By the senior year, however, young men and women were equally likely to have jobs.

These employment data come from the first six rounds of the BLS National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. The survey includes a nationally representative sample of about 9,000 young men and women who were born during the years 1980 to 1984. These respondents were ages 12 to 17 when first interviewed in 1997, and ages 18 to 23 when interviewed for a sixth time in 2002-03. To find out more, see "Work Activity of High School Students: Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 05-732.