Posted on 07/10/2014 6:19:36 AM PDT by george76
since working in the summer can predict future job prospects, that matters.
...
Hires of 16- to 19-year-olds in May and June dropped 12 percent in comparison to last year. The teen unemployment rate has been in decline in the past year
...
teens who work evenings or summers are more likely to find better jobs and earn more money down the line.
The reason summer jobs can predict future success is that they allow teens to get acquainted with the working world and to expand their networks. Interestingly, it barely matters what the job consists of.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
You and I are the same age and appear to have had similar experiences, just different places. My town was medium-sized (12K) in southern Kansas and I recall seeing similar stories back then yet I found work. Sometimes, work found me as a neighbor worked for the state employment service and regularly called me for jobs they had on the board. Lots of unloading of trucks with one longer gig working on a local hog farm.
At least near where we live, it isn’t easy for young folks to score summer jobs, but it’s far from impossible.
My son got a late start, and only applied at about a dozen places. But he quickly got a job in the mall as a sales rep. However, the retailer started cutting back hours almost immediately, and then closed. Within a day, he got a job at a lower rate of pay, but with full-time hours for the rest of the summer.
Of course, it’s easier to get a job if one shows up with a perfectly-prepared resume, dressed cleanly in a button-down shirt with khaki slacks, decent shoes, groomed hair, and overall clean look, and no piercings or tatoos. It also helps if one can go through an interview articulately, demonstrating a modicum of intelligence, and one doesn’t start the conversation by asking about pay, time off, and benefits.
He wound up as a plumber’s helper for a local water company. At the end of his interview, when the owner asked him how much he’d like as an hourly wage, my son said, “I’m happy to take minimum wage.” The owner was a little taken aback, and gave him $8 per hour, instead, with guaranteed weekly overtime.
I spoke to the office manager yesterday, and they are so delighted to have him. He works hard (and it is hard, physical labor, often performed out in the hot sun), is happy to do menial tasks others shirk, and complains about nothing. He’s grateful to have a decent job. And he’s having a great time, making friends, learning a lot about basic plumbing and water treatment systems, and earning a nice-sized chunk of his freshman year college tuition at the same time.
There are jobs out there, but there are plenty of job seekers. Employers can afford to be picky. Young people who “get with the program” and show up fresh, presentable, enthusiastic, humble, and articulate will get jobs. Young people who show up looking like they just rolled out of bed, threw on the rattiest T-shirt they could find, and smell of cigarettes (or worse), complaining about the job before it’s offered will not find jobs.
Everybody’s having a hard time getting a job.
It helps to be on a government-approved special preference list.
I also helped a neighbor, who was as poor as we were, in his scrap metal recycling, as it would be called today. We called it junk dealing. He would get old cars and appliances and strip them down for the copper, iron and aluminum. I still do it occasionally when I see an old air conditioner or refrigerator on the curb for trash. It reminds me of my youth................But lately, I have been unable to do it as they disappear before I can get back to them in my truck to pick them up. People are hurting...................
I worked on a loading dock for a transfer company when I was 18..................
...and a lot of people who would have normally been employed full-time except for two things.
1) The obama economy is a dismal failure with a high percentage of perennially unemployed and under employed.
2) Thanks to obamacare many people have seen their full-time jobs eliminated and cut to part-time, or seen their part-time hours cut. This necessitates having multiple part-time jobs.
The net result - which is entirely predictable - is that there is far more competition for fewer open part-time jobs. Another significant outcome, and quite probably was one of the desired outcomes, is that in numbers unemployment has gone down. They are still fudging the numbers having dropped millions from the rolls, but they're getting some help. Finally, more people, being only part-time, do not get or no-longer get health insurance coverage through their employers, thus being forced into obamacare.
Adults are being hired since they will do the job well.
“Are you a union man?” — Paid lothario Rodolfo Tonetti, “The Gay Divorcee” (1934)
No one is going to hire a teenager, and deal with the inexperience, immaturity, and additional break and record keeping requirements of child labor law, when for the same minimum wage they are being compelled to pay they can get an adult.
Ideal prep for what lies ahead for them
Illegal aliens don’t seem to have that problem.
"All according to plan... and it was so easy it's laughable!"
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