The problem
The bottom of the career ladder is breaking
The paperboy vanished and nothing replaced him. Now the same thing is happening to every early rung: the teen job, the internship and, as AI arrives, the entry-level job itself.
Teen labor force participation, from its 1979 peak to today.
BLSCollege students who sought an internship in 2023 and couldn't get one.
BHEFUnemployment for recent graduates, above the 4.2% rate for all adults.
NY Fed, 2026How far young workers in AI-exposed jobs have fallen behind their peers.
Stanford, 2026The argument
Four moves
The collapse
Teen jobs, internships and entry-level jobs are disappearing at once. Today's young adults are the least working generation in U.S. history.
Why it matters
Early work is where people learn to work. Without it, young people start later and earn less, and the pipeline that produces every manager, executive and entrepreneur dries up.
Why the market won't fix it
Every employer, college and family is acting rationally, and together they're producing a failure. Paper routes never came back. Teen work has been flat for 15 years.
Manufacturing the rungs
Concrete, affordable fixes: the 5% Pledge, new models of work-integrated learning, and a national talent-development scorecard.
From the prologue
The paper route
My first job was delivering newspapers. Delivering the papers was the easy part. The hard part was collecting: going door to door, knocking, and asking my customers for the money they owed me.
One of my customers was an elderly retired man named Ed Jackiel. Instead of a cash tip, Ed made me homemade apple pies. I'd like to think Ed got some good human company out of the time we spent together. I know I got to feast on delicious apple pie for several days afterward.
Nobody would have called any of this a career move. But it was the first time someone outside my family depended on me to show up, do the job right, and handle the money honestly. It was my first rung.
5%
The 5% Pledge
An internship for every student who wants one
U.S. employers offer internships at about 2.2% of total jobs. If every employer reached 5%, the national internship gap would close. Interns convert to hires at roughly 130 times the rate of job applicants, at about the same cost per hire.
3.6M internships ÷ 163M jobs ≈ 2.2%
8.2M students who want one ÷ 163M jobs ≈ 5%
About the author
Brandon Busteed
Brandon Busteed is one of the world's foremost experts on education and workforce development, with a particular focus on work-integrated learning. He is CEO of Edconic, which operates Sotheby's Institute of Art, Vogue College of Fashion, The School of The New York Times, Manchester City Sports Business School and the Mayo Clinic Pre-College Healthcare Academy.
He previously served as Chief Partnership Officer and Global Head of Learn-Work Innovation at Kaplan, and as Global Head of Public Sector and Executive Director of Education and Workforce Development at Gallup, where he led the Gallup-Purdue Index. He founded Outside The Classroom, whose online courses have been taken by more than 15 million college students.
- 300+articles, including nearly 200 on Forbes
- 200+conference keynotes
- LinkedIn Top Voice33,000+ followers
- TrusteeTransylvania University, Excelsior University; director, AAC&U