(Bloomberg Business) -- Teen unemployment remains sky-high. It was 17.1 percent in April. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the May numbers on Friday, and they probably won't be much better.

But today's teens have something very big on their side: There aren't very many of them. So as they enter their prime working years, and boomers keep retiring, they will be in high demand. That's according to Gad Levanon, the managing director for the economic outlook and labor markets at the Conference Board in New York.

Teens belong to Generation Z, the small cohort coming along behind the large Millennial generation. Gen Z is just beginning to reach working age. Pew Research uses 1997 as the end of the Millennial generation, while acknowledging that "no chronological end point has been set for this group." If the oldest Gen Zers were born in 1998, they're turning 17 this year.