Posted on 06/04/2005 6:57:27 PM PDT by Tarantulas
Fewer jobs for teens this summer - Unemployed less prepared for real world, report says
2005-06-03
by Jamie Swift
Journal Reporter
The scarcity of summer jobs for young people in King County and across the country has reached a crisis level, according to a report on youth employment released Thursday.
Nationally, less than 37 percent of teenagers are expected to be able to find jobs this summer. That's down from 47.5 percent in 1989 and last year's 42 percent, the lowest in the 57 years such data has been collected.
In King County, employment among teens 16-19 dropped 28 percent from 2000 to 2003, the report says.
"We're calling it a crisis,'' said Kris Stadelman, CEO of Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County, an independent nonprofit that completed the 16-page youth employment report.
More students dropping out
Compounding the job shortage, the report says, more students than ever are dropping out of high school, prompting experts to predict that American workers of tomorrow will not be prepared to compete in a global economy.
According to the report, the low-pay, low-skill jobs that have historically gone to high school students are now held by recent immigrants -- adding 1.8 million people to the workforce since 2000 -- older workers returning to the job market, and jobseekers who can't find work in their fields due to the sluggish economy.
"They're competing with elderly people to work at McDonald's,'' said Melinda Giovengo, manager at the Youthsource career training center in Renton, which primarily serves local high school drop-outs.
A Youthsource student, 18-year-old Ny'neshea Ray of Tukwila, said she's been frustrated by her summer job search.
"They don't have much jobs for older people now, so they're trying to take our jobs,'' said Ray. "Nobody really wants to hire us (young people). They don't think we're responsible enough.''
Public funding decreasing
Another factor contributing to the job shortage is a shift in public funding away from summer job programs for youth, Giovengo said. It wasn't long ago, she said, that King County had a summer work program that offered jobs to 300 young people; now that's down to just 18.
Wendy Hurst, career specialist at Kentlake High School, doesn't know the statistics, but she's noticed the trend. The number of postings on the summer job board at the high school has decreased year after year, she said.
"It's not just summer jobs,'' she said. "When I first got into this (six years ago), our graduates were walking out of here getting manufacturing jobs making $15 or $16 an hour. That's just not happening anymore.''
Young people from low-income families will be hurt most by the job shortage because they don't have the established networks that middle- and higher-income kids do.
"In a tight market, the network is key,'' Stadelman said. Teens from higher-income families "have a broader network to link into jobs that are available to kids.''
Working teens from upper and middle income families also earn significantly more money (nationally, an average of $12.39/hour) than working teens from low-income families ($6.90/hour).
The significance of the spiraling drop in summer jobs goes far beyond the fact that fewer young people will have money to see a movie or pay for car insurance, Stadelman said.
Teens who don't work in the marketplace are less prepared for the real world, thus creating a less competitive American workforce, Stadelman said.
Young adults of today will be expected to replace the workers of the Baby Boom generation, "some of the best educated and most productive workers in our history,'' Stadelman said.
"Where are those kids going and what are we going to do when they're our workforce?'' Stadelman said. "How do you cope with that drop in education level and competitiveness of your workforce?''
But it's even more than that, she said.
"Those first jobs really shape us,'' Stadelman said. "It helped us decide what we were good at; what we hated; and that school was more important than we thought. You find out the rules of work: show up on time, be respectful, and to work as a team.''
By way of helping to solve the job shortage, the Workforce Development Council report suggests connecting employers with young people, increasing public investment in youth work programs, and providing more rigorous coursework in schools.
Jamie Swift can be reached at jamie.swift@kingcountyjournal.com or 253-872-6646.
THE REPORT
View the youth employment report in its entirety at http://www.youthatwork.info/
Are you one of those people who pay $2 an hour under the table for babysitting a house full of cantankerous children?
People are not rewarded for hard labor, they are punished. They go home at night in pain from working so hard, while the ones who make money sit in air conditioned offices pushing pencils. All work is important.
The problem is not the illegals as much as the employers. They would never allow their cheap labor force to be deported or themselves to be torted. They would be forced to pay a working wage to Americans, then they'd moan and whine about not making big enough profits and threaten to move their operations to Mexico so they won't STARVE to death. There are plenty of ideologicals out there willing to abolish the minimum wage, and to call you a socialist for not approving of the Mexican style class arrangement. They would rather see Americans living in shanties or under the bridge than to compensate those who make them their huge profits.
Oh well, just a thought... (but it would work too, hopefully I planted a seed in some aspiring lawyer type to search the fine print of the various Equal Opportunity Acts, Fair Labor Codes etc.)
You are behind the times.
The New York minimum wage (New York is one of 12 states where the State minimum wage is higher that the Federal minimum wage) is currently $6.00 per hour and will be increased to $6.75 by next summer.
Minimum Wage Laws in the States - 2005
As far as taxes are concerned, a student that works a summer job at minimum wage won't be paying much, if any, tax after paying Social Security. The employer, however, has to pay L&I taxes on top of that.
Nowadays, for employers, the expense of a high school summer worker is simply not worth the hassle of dealing with a teenager.
And those have dried up. Our company used to hire a few interns every summer, now we don't. The work they used to do just gets done by permanent staff.
Well they certainly can't blame that on illegal immigrants. In fact the anti-illegal crowd blames illegals on increased school enrollment.
Now we laugh at the anti-illegals, anti-business crowd that can't understand it.
Without a plentiful supply of labor, businesses cannot expand.
States that are immigrant friendly, such as Texas and California are prospering, those that are immigrant hostile are not.
The rust belt states will never learn that the weather hasn't changed in two hundred years, only their anti-business attitude has changed.
I see the same things too. And I think it tells us something about the employment market when businesses get jobs based on just those qualifications.
If there actually were many people who wanted these jobs, they'd have to sell on more than that. I'd settle for showing up - English is just an added goodie.
No one ever promises to do a better job than the competition anymore.
Why is that?
Cost savings, and the fact that the intern jobs didn't offer any sort of path into permanent positions with the company, because we are small and hire only experienced people for the most part.
Huh? California is prospering?
Fat chance. Not many lawyers work pro bono.
This is my situation. There are NO JOBS! I'm looking for something to supplement my job that is underemploying me. I just applied at an unemployment agency. This is humiliating in the extreme. Everything requires experience, people need a zillion year degree just to work in data entry. I'm a college student who couldn't even afford the books this semester needed for my classes. I've seen so many people in the unemployment agency and even middle age to elderly people.
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