MELVILLE, N.Y. – The employment rate among teenagers has fallen to its lowest on record, bucking some economists’ expectations that young people would fare better in a downturn, says a Hofstra University expert.

Hofstra economics professor Gregory DeFreitas said a combination of factors, including recent “sluggish job growth,” had made it tougher for young people to get jobs.

DeFreitas, director of the university’s Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy, edited and contributed two chapters to a book out this month, “Young Workers in the Global Economy: Job Challenges in North America, Europe and Japan.”

Actually, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the seasonally adjusted employment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds was 33.1 percent in June 2008, said Martin Kohli, regional economist in the department’s New York office.

“There’s been a surprising decline in young people’s economic status,” said DeFreitas. The decline was surprising because a “lot of economists expected that youth would be doing pretty well,” citing better education than previous generations and “savvy computer skills.”

In addition, it was thought that with baby boomers aging and a decline in the numbers of young people in later generations, there would be more job opportunities for young people.

But instead they had been hit by slow job growth “especially since 2000,” DeFreitas said. At the same time, some of the baby boomer generation were delaying retirement and some retirees were returning to the job market, in some cases competing with young workers.

DeFreitas said research showed similarities between the United States and other advanced nations in low employment rates among the young. But in some countries, such as the Netherlands, Germany and Japan, youth tend to have higher levels of employment.

“Among the main reasons is very well-developed apprenticeship systems … and school-to-work institutions,” DeFreitas said. “They really have an advantage getting entry-level jobs.”

DeFreitas noted in the 1950s, around 50 percent of teenagers were employed. Kohli said Labor Department statistics show in the 1950s, the percentage of employed teenagers hovered in the high-40s, and that as recently as 1998, 45 percent of teenagers had jobs.

The national unemployment rate among 16- to 19-year-olds was 18.1 percent in June 2008, DeFreitas said, 2 percentage points higher than a year ago, citing current Labor Department statistics. (Young people not looking for work are not included in the unemployment rate.) For all workers age 16 to 24, the unemployment rate was 12.6 percent this past June, up from 10.6 percent a year ago.

In New York State, the unemployment rate for teens was 17.6 percent in 2007, the most recent year available. That was a decrease from the 19.2 percent rate in 2006, the year that saw a sharp rise in the unemployment rate from 2005, when it was 13.9 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. For 20- to 24-year-olds in New York, the unemployment rate was 9.6 percent in 2007, up from 9 percent in 2006.

While there is no age breakdown for the unemployment rate among Long Island workers, Kohli noted job growth on Long Island has been “flat recently.” “People from a variety of age groups are going to be facing difficulty,” he said.

DeFreitas said the job plight among youth had a ripple effect on households and families. “More and more adults in the U.S. and elsewhere are under greater economic distress,” he said. “In that scenario, whatever young people can bring in matters more and more.”

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AP-NY-07-31-08 1712EDT