Where do young people work?

A considerable body of comparative research on youth labor markets has focused on differences in school-to-work (STW) transitions and their impact on youth employment. Much of this research has examined institutional factors, comparing the performance of different vocational education and training (VET) systems, the effectiveness of active labor market policies, wage-setting arrangements, or the need for young people to have greater employability skills. However, surprisingly little attention has been given to employers’ behavior or to identifying which sectors of the economy are more open to employing young people and how these have changed over time. This chapter seeks to address this gap by examining where young people (aged 16–24 years) have been employed — prior to and since the Great Recession of 2008–2009.