I had summer jobs from the age of 14 on. I think it’s a huge part of growing up. Sorry to see it’s going the way of the dodo. From my friend Katrina Trinko in USA Today:

In 2000, the teenage landscape was a different place. Destiny’s Child and ‘N Sync topped the music charts, Survivor popularized the new “reality TV” genre and, most retro of all, employers were still hiring teens.
That’s something the iPad generation can’t relate to: About one in four teens will have a job this summer, down from more than half of teens just a decade ago, according to an April report from Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies.
“Kids got thrown out of the labor market in a big way,” said professor Andrew Sum, co-author of the report.
Sum laid out the competition teens faced in the last decade for low-level jobs: Older workers (55-plus), young college graduates (25 and under), immigrants and, as the construction and manufacturing sectors weakened, blue-collar workers.
“Teen workers occupy the ‘last hired, first fired’ rung on the job ladder, and their employment is hit much harder during downturns than that of older workers,” wrote Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, in a 2009 analysis. This has certainly been true this recession, when teens have been hurt more than any other age group.