In the late 1970s, more than 70 percent of teens had summer jobs — this summer, only about 40 percent will. Though the bad economy is partly to blame, less than 10 percent of unemployed teens even wanted a job last summer. Staten Island mom Mary Kay Linge weighs in on the trend.
I see the stats up close and personal. In my house, we’ve got a whopping 67 percent teen unemployment rate. Two of our three teenagers will likely be moping around the house all summer.
If you’re wondering, it really was different Back In The Day. Kids pretty much expected to land jobs once school let out.
When I was 15, my daughter Teresa’s age, I did office data entry; at 17, like my son Peter, I worked factory gigs soldering circuits and packaging computer floppy disks.
As conventional wisdom has it, those early jobs taught me critical skills like time management, professionalism and the value of a dollar. No doubt that’s true. At the time, my main takeaway was that I’d better get myself to college, because I was no great shakes at soldering or disk packaging.
Both my teens are bright and personable. But when I bring up job-hunting, they talk like discouraged workers without ever having worked.
“I hear all the part-time jobs are taken by adults feeding families and college grads paying student loans,” Teresa says. “Why would anyone hire an inexperienced teenager?”
She hasn’t pounded the pavement; she’s talked herself out of it before she’s even tried.
“It’s not like I desperately need the money, anyway,” Peter says.
It’s true. At his age, I was dying to work so I’d have cash for concerts, movies, and dances. When you do your socializing online, though, you need a lot less pocket money. My teens hang out with friends on Tumblr more often than in person.
With college talk at every turn, high-schoolers fixate on boosting grades and padding out that list of extracurriculars. Paid work seems like a distraction.
To be fair, looking through job postings, I see why kids are so discouraged. Listing after listing shuts them out: “Drivers only,” “18+,” “Experience required.” Laziness and the Internet aren’t the only reasons they’re not working.
We’ll keep them busy some other way. Peter can manage his Eagle Scout project; Teresa might land an unpaid internship.
I want my kids to have the rites of passage that I did. But it could be years before they know the satisfaction of cashing a paycheck for a job well done.