All their jobs are taken
Hi, graduated with a BE last year and I'm thinking you've just been seeing lazy grads.
I'm a self-admitted slacker, but I've been working since I was 14 and my even more slackerish twin brother since he was 15. And I don't think it's the jobs we choose, as between us we've worked in most of the standard teen fields; he's worked in retail and movie theaters, I've done childcare and tutoring, and we've both done clerical work. The hardest part of getting most of the jobs was filling out the applications and writing the resume/cover letter. It could be 'cause we're in New York (though in theory that would mean even more opportunities for jobs to be taken by illegals) or 'cause we're first generation or have a single mom, but it was always a given that we'd have to pay for our own toys and most of my friends (including people who aren't first gen/have both parents/etc) have to pay for for anything that's not a staple-like trendy clothing/bags-out of their own pockets.
Full disclosure: I have haphazard job skills, but that's cause I'm taking the PhD/research route so I stayed in labs over the summer instead of doing internships. That's probably a separate issue though, that many of the people who in theory have some of the skills would rather stay in school than work in a job that makes use of 'em.