Ripples for a Lifetime

The job market often defines a person’s prospects for lifetime employment and opportunity beginning with summer and part-time work during high school years. Such work has been important in showing college admissions officers evidence of dedication and discipline and later, first-full-time jobs often require some prior work experience. But obviously, the Great Recession killed a huge segment of those summer job openings. Struggling experienced people who lost their jobs and have had to take what they could find, often add some of these summer and part-time opportunities to their earnings programs, often having two or three such jobs to make ends meet. Every job they take is one fewer opportunity for a teen.

With the employment picture improving, at least with lower-end work, perhaps new these opportunities paint a brighter future for teens looking for summer jobs. But it’s been tough out there. “About 25 percent of the nation’s 16- to 19-year-olds were in the work force in 2013, compared with 45 percent in 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” New York Times, June 13^th. Notwithstanding the brighter job picture, we only expect a small uptick in teen employment this summer, and for African American teens, that 17% employment rate appears to be steady.

Oh, and there are long-term consequences: “Failing to find work doesn’t just mean a shortage of cash in the near term. A study released in March by the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program said finding a job when you’re older is harder if you haven’t worked during your teenage years.

“In addition, ‘research shows those who work in high school have wages 10 to 15 percent higher when they graduate from college,’ said Ishwar Khatiwada, a co-author of the study and an associate director of research at Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies.” NY Times. But with jobs scarce since the big crash, the patterns of summer employment expectations among teens have created alternative to paid jobs. “[S]ome kids in more affluent families forgo paid work opportunities to build their resumes through community service, summer classes or unpaid internships. Others play year-round sports and don’t have time to hold a part-time job… Many teens from low-income or minority families, on the other hand, may seek work to supplement their families’ income but can’t find it.” BeverlyHills.patch.com, June 22^nd. 

It does seem unfair that well-connected teens from wealthy families have an edge to take unpaid internships, while folks lower down the economic ladder need the money… that they cannot get. Worse, even if those less-affluent teens would take such internship, their families simply don’t have the connections to help their kids get them.

Picture those college admissions officers noted above. “Work experience that’s relevant to a college applicant’s major can show admissions officers ‘an interest bubbling up under the surface,’ said Lisa Sohmer, a member of the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the director of college counseling at the Garden School in Jackson Heights, New York… These part-time jobs can help students figure out if they’d enjoy working in a specific field… Plus, Sohmer said, any part-time job, from waiting tables to working in retail, can teach youth important lessons for college and for life.

“‘[Part-time jobs] show admissions officers characteristics of the student that make them appealing — responsibility, work ethic, the ability to start something and finish it,’ she said. ‘It shows resilience, and not everyone can go work for their congressman.’” BeverlyHills.patch.com. For employers who can, offering up that summer offering to a qualified teen just might create a wonderful ripple that just might change that life forever.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we really need to reestablish a pattern of mutual concern and taking care of each other.