As the US economy is struggling to recover from the crisis it never yet managed to exit, this summer season, long- awaited by teens, who want to get a summer job, does not look too good for them.

Analysts said that teenagers would find it difficult to find a job in the first place this summer, since the 2008 job market for young people seems to be shaping up to be the weakest in more than 50 years, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

According to a paper published by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, only around one third of the teenagers between 16 and 19 in the United States have chances to get a job during the summer. This is the lowest figure ever recorded by the government since it began tracking teenage work in 1948.

"When you go into a recession, kids always get hit the hardest," said Andrew Sum, an economist at the Center for Labor Market Studies who led the summer job market study.

The newspaper made the comparison between this year and 2000, when about 45 percent of 16 and 19-year-olders were employed during the summer.

The US Labor Department figures also revealed that teenagers that are part of a minority face an even more difficult environment, as only 21 percent of African-Americans and 31 percent of Hispanics from the ages of 16 to 19 had a job last summer.

"Kids always go to the back of the hiring queue. Now, they find themselves with a lot of other people in line ahead of them."