Summary

Motivation

The Boston Summer Youth Employment Program has been successful across various cities. Every summer, the program helps connect more than 10,000 youth to around 900 employers. The program has evidence of a 35% reduction in violent crime and a 29% reduction in property crimes (Modestino, 2019). Moreover, the program has also helped increase on-time graduation rates and overall GPAs, along with decreasing dropout rates for youth who participated in the SYEP (Modestino and Paulsen, 2023). Post-COVID, there has been an increase in applications across the youth population. However, despite clear instructions available on the city website for job applications, high school students find it challenging to navigate the application process, determining the number of jobs to apply for, and understanding the documents required for submission (Modestino et al., 2023). Over the years, it has been observed that youth of color frequently fail to complete the application process due to lack of support (Ref: Memo pre-post survey 2022, 2023, 2024). Research indicates that youth who receive guidance on applying for jobs are more likely to be selected and comfortably proceed through the onboarding process (Ref: Memo pre-post survey 2022, 2023, 2024). Using data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and employer partners, the research analyzed the effect of additional support for 9th- and 10th-grade youth during the application process.

Key Findings

As part of the commitment to the Mayor’s Youth Jobs Guarantee, which guarantees a summer job or opportunity for every Boston Public School student who wants one in summer 2024, there was a need for collaborative effort with the BPS system and YEO working together to encourage youth participation, especially for 9th- and 10th-grade students to apply for a variety of jobs by creating awareness about the futureBOS platform. In March 2024, when applications for the Summer Youth Employment Program 2024 for Boston City began, a team of facilitators from both City of Boston and Northeastern University facilitated school-based employment access workshops in three Career and Technical Education (CTE) Boston Public Schools. The workshop aimed to guide youth through the application process and was specifically designed for 9th- and 10th-grade students as employers are more likely to select youth from these grades especially with skills they learn from CTE courses. Each workshop lasted a full class period of 60 minutes, allowing sufficient time for both instruction and practical application. The workshop maintained a deliberate spacing of two weeks between sessions, though this timeline remained flexible to accommodate school-specific scheduling needs, such as testing periods or other academic requirements. The first workshop focused entirely on digital literacy and resource navigation. Facilitators began with a comprehensive presentation introducing students to the futureBOS employment platform (used to apply for city and grant partner jobs), dedicating the first half of the class period to demonstrating essential features and search functionalities. The second half transitioned into guided hands-on practice, where students explored the platform under facilitator supervision. This approach ensured students developed the practical skills needed for independent navigation while having immediate access to support when questions arose. The second session built upon this foundation by addressing the concrete steps of the employment application and hiring process. Facilitators dedicated the initial portion of this session to explaining the hiring process, carefully outlining required documentation and proper form completion procedures. The remaining time was devoted to active application submission, with facilitators providing individual support to students as they navigated the actual job application process. This hands-on approach allowed students to immediately apply their learning while having access to expert guidance.

Study Design

We evaluate impacts using SuccessLink data provided by YEO which covers all employer partners that the City funds, including the city departments as well as community based (grant) partners. These data provide us with detailed application status along with the demographics of the applicant, i.e., gender, race, grades, and school name. We also use the SIMS file for the academic year 2023-2024 from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) data to examine the applicants’ details across the treatment and comparison groups. This helps us assess whether the students in treated schools were different from those in the non-treated schools since we were not able to randomly assign students to treatment for the purposes of this exploratory pilot program.

Table 2 shows that there are notable demographic differences between schools in the treatment versus the comparison groups for 9th and 10th-grade students, particularly in gender composition. The treatment group showed significantly higher female representation (59%) compared to the comparison group (45%). While the racial and ethnic distributions were broadly similar, the treatment group had a slightly lower proportion of Black American students (33% vs. 38%), which was only marginally significant. These insights from Table 2 provide us with an understanding that although the student enrollment looks similar, the students differ somewhat across the groups especially in terms of gender.

Assessing Workshop Effectiveness

To understand the youth application behavior for a large-scale workforce development program, we assess three major outcomes, i.e., application rate, number of applications submitted, and number of students that were successful in completing the onboarding process, conditional on getting selected. These outcomes help us understand the program’s outreach and accessibility among the Boston Public School students. For instance, a higher number of applications submitted by the youth reflect their confidence in navigating the process by providing insights into whether youth are applying for multiple opportunities or focus on a single option. Moreover, by identifying the drop-off points in the application and onboarding process, the program can implement tailored interventions that address unique barriers faced by different groups.

When examining application rates by demographic characteristics, Hispanic or Latino students from schools in the treatment group were more likely to submit applications. It may be the case that these workshops particularly helped Hispanic or Latino students who were experiencing language barriers. There is a statistically significant difference of 10.5 percentage points in application rate i.e. 39% applying for jobs from the treatment group compared to 28% in the control group represented in Figure 2.

Number of Applications Submitted

The workshops also instructed students to apply to at least three jobs. As prior research from prior summers has shown, the probability of youth being selected is higher if the applicant applied to at least three jobs (Modestino et al., 2023). Although the percentage of students enrolled in treated schools who applied to three or more jobs was higher (around 27% vs. 23%), this difference was not statistically significant. Though not statistically significant, we find a higher percentage of Hispanic or Latino youth from the treatment schools applying to three or more jobs (around 29% vs. 21%). However, there was no meaningful impact on the number of applications (around 22% vs. 21%) submitted by males in treatment versus comparison schools.

Successfully Completing the Hiring (Onboarding) Process

Using the application, payroll and participant rosters submitted by the employer partners which include city departments as well as community based (grant) partners respectively we access the hiring process to understand the drop-off points. Though not statistically significant, we find that 9th and 10th Grade students from the treated schools were more likely to complete the onboarding process for the city partners (around 95% vs 87%). However, the opposite was true for the grant partners with the percentage of students from the comparison schools being more likely to successfully reach the payroll stage (around 83% vs 76%) as shown in Figure 4.

Source: Author’s calculation is based on the application data provided by the Office of Youth Employment and Opportunity. Note: Boston Art Academy, EMK Academy, and English High School are the treatment group. Boston Green Academy, and Madison Park are the comparison schools. We use the application status data from the ICIMS, for city partners and payroll roaster submitted by the grant partners.

Changes over Time:

We can only look at the changes over time for the city partners as we do not have the application data from previous year for the grant partners. Figure 5 shows that the proportion of students applying to summer jobs in 2024 increased for both the treated and non-treated schools compared to previous years, likely due to the additional marketing from the rollout of the City’s new futureBOS website. However, there was a sharp increase in the proportion of students applying for summer jobs from the treated schools in summer 2024, as compared to summer 2023 (8%) over what was observed between summer 2022 and summer 2023. In contrast, we see a much smaller increase in application rates among 9th and 10th grade students from the comparison schools [4] .

Conclusion and Reccomendations

Research suggests that information frictions in the youth labor market may limit the trajectories of young people in the U.S. (Modestino et al. 2023, Heller and Kessler 2021, Schwartz et al. 2020 and Aizer et al. 2020). Even when an applicant has the appropriate skills to succeed, lack of information and support to successfully complete job search constrain youth employment. The SYEP Pilot Workshop demonstrates the potential of targeted, supportive interventions in addressing employment barriers for youth, particularly for Hispanic students who may have language or documentation barriers. As observed by the facilitators, across all three of the participating schools (English High School, Boston Arts Academy, and Edward M. Kennedy Academy), many 9th grade students find the job application process overwhelming since they have never applied for jobs before. For example, applications requiring a resume poses a significant barrier for most 9th graders who have never created one before. Overall, the two-workshop structure, combining presentation and hands-on guidance using the futureBOS website shows promise in making these summer job opportunities more accessible to BPS youth as part of the Mayor’s youth jobs guarantee. The facilitators noted that students were generally engaged and responded positively to guided website exploration, particularly when using filters to find jobs matching their interests. Still, challenges remain – students often lacked basic information needed for applications during workshops and would benefit from take-home resources for families.

Based on these findings, the following recommendations are proposed:

● Expand the SYEP workshop program to additional schools. Target schools that have high proportion Hispanic and Latino students in 9th and 10th grades and lower rate of applications should be targets to expand the SYEP 2025 with equity, such as East Boston High School, Boston International High School & Newcomers Academy, Charlestown High School etc.

● Continue refining job application support strategies. For instance, providing more personalized guidance for the schools with diverse backgrounds, providing take-home resources in multiple-languages such as Spanish. Most importantly, sharing resumes templates to teach them how to write a resume.

● Finally, expand teacher involvement. Workshop sessions with teacher support showed greater student participation, suggesting that collaboration between facilitators and teachers can significantly enhance students’ job application experiences and outcomes.

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