This summer, everyone will be impacted in some way by the declining economy and rising gas, food, and—fill in the blank—prices. Unfortunately, your students aren’t immune, either.

It’s a cruel summer for teenagers looking for jobs, as a recent survey by SnagAJob.com showed. Many employers are not hiring for temporary summer jobs—some of those positions have been taken by older, displaced workers and others have been eliminated. Of the employers who were hiring students on break, they were hiring teens they’d worked with the year before.

Even students who aren’t old enough to work are affected. Some districts are cancelling summer school and enrichment classes, which will hurt the neediest populations. And many school officials and social workers are worried that more students from impoverished households could go hungry this summer without the guarantee of a school lunch.

For older students, a summer job may mean extra spending money or college savings, valuable experience in a field, or food for their families.

But last year, the job market for teens was the worst on record since the World War II period as the seasonally adjusted employment rate for teens plummeted to 34.5 percent, Michelle Singletary, one of my favorite financial columnists, recently wrote. This year, it’s only going to get worse, with only about 34.2 percent of teens employed, she says.

Researchers at Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies say it’s an even harder market for particular groups of students, including: 16- and 17-year-olds, males, blacks, Hispanics, and low-income students. These teens “face the equivalent of a Great Depression,” they write in a dire report called “The Continued Collapse of the Nation’s Teen Job Market and the Dismal Outlook for the 2008 Summer Labor Market for Teens: Does Anybody Care?”

That can lead to some alarming consequences: “Less work experience today leads to less work experience tomorrow and lower earnings down the road,” write the Northeastern researchers. They also cite research showing that disadvantaged teens who work in high school are more likely to remain in high school than their peers who do not work, and teen girls who have jobs are less likely to become pregnant.

For teens looking for summer work in this economy, Fortune Magazine’s columnist Anne Fisher advises to start early—ideally, in January -- and apply often, sending out dozens of applications instead of one or two.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor