Data were obtained from 446 employed high school students who worked at least 10 hours per week and who attended two relatively homogeneous, suburban high schools. Students completed questionnaires in the high school setting during the spring of 1992. Ordered-probit regression analyses revealed job dissatisfaction was positively related to cigarette and alcohol use but not to illicit drug use. Coping styles did not moderate the relationship between job dissatisfaction and substance use. Nonetheless, coping styles had significant main effect relationships to substance use. Active coping was negatively related and avoidant coping was positively related to both cigarette and alcohol use, while neither coping style was related to illicit drug use. Because the growing number of high school students in the work force indicates employment plays a major social role in influencing the health-related behaviors of individuals before they reach adulthood, the authors recommend researchers broaden their focus to consider processes associated with work roles when developing and testing etiological models of adolescent substance use. 36 references and 3 tables