Is AI Replacing Teenagers in the Workforce?
Maddie Guelich, Latin School of Chicago, Junior, Spring 2026
For many teenagers, a job is not just a fun extracurricular activity or a shiny boost on college applications – it funds their everyday purchases, and may meaningfully bolster their family’s income.
With AI’s recent rise to popularity, are teenage job opportunities dwindling and increasingly difficult to obtain?
Forbes estimates that “AI could wipe out 27% of teen jobs by 2030” (Koetsier, 2025). But who does this statistic actually apply to?
For instance, cashiers’ jobs are most at risk, as multiple chain stores are replacing manual cashiers with AI-backed machines that can quickly analyze customer requests – all jobs usually performed by teenagers. However, jobs focused on human connection are relatively unaffected. Reagan Dorrian, a junior at Water Payton College Prep High School, describes the job searching process as “difficult because of limited credentials, not because of AI,” and that it hasn’t “impacted [her] babysitting job because AI isn’t applicable there.”
AI is more useful in jobs that require heavy data collection, allowing employees to focus on more analytical tasks. In larger companies, Artificial Intelligence is primarily used to streamline tasks analysts perform, such as managing spreadsheets or creating PowerPoint presentations. Jen Boehnel, SVP of Kaufman Hall, described these tasks as AI’s main productivity outcomes.
“I look for consultants who can problem-solve, organize work, and lead a project; those don’t change with AI, but AI allows fresh grads to understand AI’s capability as a tool, and be able to prompt it and leverage it to their best ability.”
Jen notes that a valuable skill is adapting AI to enhance productivity within the company's scope. Because AI is primarily useful in companies that rarely hire teenagers, its impact on teen jobs may be limited.
In fact, teen unemployment has decreased significantly since the pandemic. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “youth unemployment rate decreased to 8.50% in March 2026 from 11.3% in 2022” (U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026). The statistic perhaps attributes the earlier spike in unemployment to COVID-19’s workforce shutdown, rather than solely to AI usage.
These perspectives suggest that teenage unemployment stems from underlying unresolved economic issues and not completely from the rise of AI.
Reagan Dorrian, student at Walter Payton
Jen Boehnel, SVP of Kaufman Hall
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