The purpose of this article is to analyze the meaning of labor for adolescents who frequent a non-governmental organization (NGO) that aims to offer vocational and technical training and seeks inclusion in the form of paid internships for disadvantaged young people. To grasp the meaning of labor, interviews were carried out among thirty adolescents who were associated with this NGO and were working. An automated content analysis, using the Alceste® software, was applied to examine the interviews. The analysis points to three categories of discourse, with positive and negative aspects of labor: careers, in which work appears as an avenue for social mobility; work, leisure, and family, in which labor is seen as a means to provide for themselves and their families; personal project, in which it is associated with responsibility and social participation.
adolescent; work; work market