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According to a survey from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University released earlier this summer, the national teen employment level is the lowest its been in 60 years.

The study showed that employment rates dipped from 51 percent in June of 2000 to 37 percent in June of this year.

The Center’s Director, Andrew Sum, said in an article that addressing the deficit is so important because teens who work more in high school have an easier transition into the labor market after graduation. He also said that national evidence shows that pregnancy rates for teens are lower in metropolitan areas where employment rates for teen girls are higher.

Some state-funded programs and initiatives are working to ease this disparity.

Teenagers in Pennsylvania are getting some assistance from a program called the Technology Work Experience Internship Program, which incentivizes companies to hire students for high-tech jobs in fields such as programming, web design, and IT infrastructure. Qualified companies are eligible for a 50 percent reimbursement of the worker’s salary.

In order to qualify, a company cannot be older than 7 years and must be involved in scientific research and development. The employee must be enrolled in a science or technology program at any PA college.

For Julian Awad, CEO of SmartGenetics.com, the program was a big incentive to look at a talented, tech-savvy demographic that may have otherwise been eclipsed by more experienced workers.

“The interest for us was the great value for the cost,” he said.

The city of Boston is also working to get their youth employed. The Boston Youth Fund, group comprised of community-based organizations, have created a job line called Hope Line, which, according to a Dotnews article, received about 8,000 applications and helped to get 3,600 teens hired at various companies.

Teens are also turning to the Internet to seek out job opportunities that might not be advertised in their local paper or job fairs.

Austin Lavin, creator of Myfirstpaycheck.com, a job site especially for teens, said that after he saw his little sister struggle to find a job, he was inspired to create a networking and job op platform to help bolster search efforts.

“We are actively building partnerships with schools, education sites, and other teen media companies to bring the jobs to a large market of interested applicants,” Lavin said.

Heather Moose, Senior Marketing Manager for SnagAJob.com, said that their job site, which focuses on hourly jobs, has created a “first jobs” manual called Working Papers that gives detailed advice to teens on securing their first job.

Other teens are turning to virtual communities such as Second Life to start earning some extra cash. According to Alexandra Alter’s article in the Wall Street Journal, as the pool of traditional summer jobs shrinks, ‘tech-savvy young gamers are honing their computer skills to capitalize on growing demand for virtual goods and services.’

Second Life, whose players use avatars to manuever through the virtual world, has developed a currency called the Linden that the players can use in malls or to buy  and sell property. The users can than convert their profits to dollars using an online money exchange service.

Alter also said that companies such as Adidas and IBM have created a presence in Second Life to begin hiring some of these enterprising users.