Where are the Summer Jobs for Teens?

[The Village Idiot]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8492524#8492579


marmar  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Jun-05-10 04:55 PM
Original message
WaPo: Where have all the summer jobs for teenagers gone?   Updated at 4:55 PM
   
Edited on Sat Jun-05-10 04:56 PM by marmar

Where have all the summer jobs for teenagers gone?

By Kate Julian
Sunday, June 6, 2010


Call it the case of the missing summer jobs.

According to Northeastern University economist Andrew Sum, only a third of American 16- to 19-year-olds had a job last summer, the lowest level on record and down from 52 percent a decade ago. The decline began long before the current economic crisis, so high unemployment is not the only culprit. But the question of who is to blame has launched your classic Washington think tank skirmish.

First up, Steven Camarota, a researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter restrictions on immigration. In a paper released last month, he points a finger at (yes) immigrants, who often fill the types of low-skill jobs that teenagers have traditionally held.

But in reviewing Camarota's paper, Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, spotted what she considered a glaring omission. "He didn't mention rising summer school enrollment," she told me last week. "It's this massive trend that he just didn't talk about."

Shierholz put out a brief critiquing Camarota's argument: "CIS Analysis of Immigration's Impact on Youth Employment Omits Key Facts." She argued that increased summer school attendance more than accounted for the decline in teen employment. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[The Village Idiot]

skeptical cynic  (313 posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sat Jun-05-10 05:09 PM
Response to Original message
2. A couple of examples of where the summer jobs went:
   
A longtime friend and colleague, an engineer, took a job with building supply chain store earning about 1/5 of what he made working as an engineer. He works in the paint department. That might have been a summer job for teenagers.

A neighbor, a project manager, lost his job because of oil industry cutbacks on Alaska's North Slope. He's painting houses now.
"I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty." - Marx (Groucho)

Higher minimum wage, illegal immigrants, high unemployment, high taxes

amborin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Sat Jun-05-10 05:11 PM
Response to Original message
3. 35% unemployment in LA's inner city areas for under 30s

California has been chasing away jobs like a professional

grilled onions Donating Member (897 posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Sat Jun-05-10 05:13 PM
Response to Original message

4. Jobs already filled?
   
Many adults have been forced to "take away" these jobs that once only teens and those seeking part time work used to do. This was always the excuse of stores that paid piddly wages--because only kids would seek out that kind of work. Now that many who had a decent job now have to work a couple part time jobs doing cashier work or assembling burgers the job market is even more bleak for teens. In the fifties kids easily found work from mowing lawns to sweeping out stores. Those yards are now handled by "landscape crews" and stores multi task their employees, often doing clerking,stocking and bringing in the carts.

 

knitter4democracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Sat Jun-05-10 05:18 PM
Response to Original message

5. My high school students have been complaining about it.
   
I'm trying to see if I can use two of them as sometime babysitters this summer. They're hoping to get more babysitting time with parents still working over the summer but unable to pay for daycare (summer rates for older kids are really high).

 

onethatcares Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Sat Jun-05-10 05:49 PM
Response to Original message
7. better question
   
where have all the jobs for everyone gone?

One day we were cruising along with close to full employment, the next only the banksters had jobs.

WHY?
look out mama, there's a white boat coming up the river

AlphaCentauri Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Sat Jun-05-10 06:04 PM
Response to Original message
8. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
   
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA, Pub.L. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105, enacted August 22, 1996) is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract With America and was introduced by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr. (R-FL-22) who believed welfare was partly responsible for bringing immigrants to the United States.<1> Bill Clinton signed PRWORA into law on August 22, 1996, fulfilling his 1992 campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it".<2>

PRWORA instituted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) which became effective July 1, 1997. TANF replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program which had been in effect since 1935 and also supplanted the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program of 1988. The law was heralded as a "reassertion of America's work ethic" by the US Chamber of Commerce, largely in response to the bill's workfare component. Some criticized the bill as a reinstitution of workhouses and believe the new system has been ineffective in getting people out of poverty. TANF was reauthorized in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_an...

Do you think it ever occurs to them that when you enact anti-business legislation it might tend to harm the businesses that create jobs??

[Randy]

Or, how about maybe Minimum Wage. It's gotten so high due to DUmmie types raising it that employers can't afford to hire the summer intern types so they don't anymore.

Just like everyone warned them repeatedly would happen if they raised Minimum to high....

[The Village Idiot]

Did you read about the experience American Somoa had when the Congress raised their tiny minimum wage?? After a couple years of the 50 cent annual increases the company just shut it down and opened a modern factory stateside.

They replaced 2,000 Somoans with 200 Carolinians.

[Randy]

Did you read about the experience American Somoa had when the Congress raised their tiny minimum wage?? After a couple years of the 50 cent annual increases the company just shut it down and opened a modern factory stateside.

They replaced 2,000 Somoans with 200 Carolinians.

Those Carolinians will work for cheap ya know.

[The Village Idiot]

When the Somoa minimum wage was raised by Congress it became more economical to employ 200 on the mainland in a modern automated facility than 2,000 on the island in their old facility.

It is as simple as that

[Randy]

Shhhhh you set the DUmmies all atwitter about robotics taking over the world because labor is to high.

Seriously, I do wonder why they haven't hit on that yet and started protesting everyone with a Roomba?

[The Village Idiot]

Seriously, I do wonder why they haven't hit on that yet and started protesting everyone with a Roomba?

They also make robotic lawn mowers.... I think the new model will be called the I-Juan

[Thor]

When I lived up in Becker, MN, I tried to find some teen to mow my lawn. I'd even supply the lawnmower. Nowhere in that city could I find anyone that wanted to do it. (it was only 1/2 acre) If I wanted it done, I'd have to have a "landscaping company" do it and they wanted a damned contract. IMO, the teens were just simply too lazy to do the hard work. I had the same problem in the winter. It really sucked because I was getting pretty gimpy.

[The Village Idiot]

When I lived up in Becker, MN, I tried to find some teen to mow my lawn.

You need an I-Juan! lol.

[jukin]

Summer of 2007 after the donks passed the higher minimum wage teen unemployment exploded. But there was ZERO connect in the media and DUmbasses as to why that happened.

[miskie]

I can tell you that the USPS barely hires anyone for summer/Christmas help anymore. Hell, I no longer have a substitute carrier, so now I work 6 days, and have to borrow a sub to get some time off.

[zeitgeist]

Here by the sea shore kids use to fight to get summer jobs at the shops, resturants, ice cream parlors, golf courses, hotels, you name it.  Heck a college kid could make a semester of tuition in the course of a summer. A valet could make darn good tips, ditto a waitress but now?  The kids are all imported.  American kids don't want to work summers. When I get a chance I will do a search for the articles from the paper explaining that very fact.  How pathetic is that??

[DumbAss Tanker]

Without the sophisticated bullshit analysis that ate up a couple hundred thousand in grant money somewhere (Probably put up by the Dept. of Labor or Dept. of Ed out of your taxes), it's fairly obvious that two primary causes would be (1) a depressed economy eliminating the demand or filling it with displaced full-timers working down for what they can get, and (2) a certain disinclination on the part of employers to pay an inflated statutory minimum wage for totally-unskilled labor that will leave right about the point it learns how to find its ass with both hands.

[Vagabond]

When I lived up in Becker, MN, I tried to find some teen to mow my lawn. I'd even supply the lawnmower. Nowhere in that city could I find anyone that wanted to do it. (it was only 1/2 acre) If I wanted it done, I'd have to have a "landscaping company" do it and they wanted a damned contract. IMO, the teens were just simply too lazy to do the hard work. I had the same problem in the winter. It really sucked because I was getting pretty gimpy.

I remember busting my tail for $15 per quater acre when I was twleve.  Towing a push lawn mower with a gas can strapped to it behind me miles away from home, in Florida summer heat, to make money.  My parents certainly didn't have any money. 

Nowadays, I get eye rolls when I ask a twelve year old if he would like to make $10 for fifteen minutes of mowing.  I won't say lazy, but definitely way too comfortable.

[The Village Idiot]

Nowadays, I get eye rolls when I ask a twelve year old if he would like to make $10 for fifteen minutes of mowing.  I won't say lazy, but definitely way too comfortable.

I'd mow your lawn for that. 

[Randy]

I lucked out. My next door neighbor cuts, weed eats, edges and blows my quarter acre for $20 when he's doing his own. The Juan and Leroy services all want 30-35 before they'll even get out of the truck.

[zeitgeist]

Here by the sea shore kids use to fight to get summer jobs at the shops, resturants, ice cream parlors, golf courses, hotels, you name it.  Heck a college kid could make a semester of tuition in the course of a summer. A valet could make darn good tips, ditto a waitress but now?  The kids are all imported.  American kids don't want to work summers. When I get a chance I will do a search for the articles from the paper explaining that very fact.  How pathetic is that??

Here is a snip of one article

By Susan Morse
smorse@seacoastonline.com
August 12, 2009 2:00 AMYORK — A local organization has provided bicycles to at least 50 seasonal workers who come to York Beach each summer to work at the Fun-O-Rama, The Goldenrod restaurant, York's Wild Kingdom, Pizza by Paras and other restaurants and motels.

This summer, college-age students from Russia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Serbia, China and elsewhere arrived in York Beach. Most are juniors and seniors in college, or graduate students, who arrive without transportation. Many look for a second and even third job to make up the $3,000 or more they

{snip}

http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090812/NEWS/908120329/-1/NEWSMAP

and another

By Silvio Laccetti
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
March 28, 2010, 6:36 AM / 1 comment
!
 They are working in Atlanta, even out in Omaha, all around Niagara and outside Baltimore; they come across the ocean to Springsteen’s Jersey shore. They are the foreign college student summer workers here in the United States on a J-1 summer work-travel (SWT) visa. You are likely to meet them at almost any vacation resort you visit across the land. What are we to make of this phenomenon impacting America in these worrisome economic times?

Certainly, the influx of these J-1 SWTs represents a radical departure from traditional/ historical circumstances of the seasonal job. For many decades, American teens found summer jobs at small amusement parks and attractions close to home.

With the onset of globalization in the late 20th century, there has been a surge in foreign student workers. According to the U. S. State Department, the number in the J-1 SWT program hovered around 150,000 from 2006 to 2008. After significant reductions because of our depression, the number for 2010 will be around 80,000.
{snip}

http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/03/28/1001603/the-globalization-of-the-summer.html

ETA LINK 2

[Vagabond]

I'd mow your lawn for that. 

The funny thing is I look back on that as good times.  I wonder what these kids will tell their kids about when they were twelve years old.  I still think the best was getting paid to reduce the water mocassin population around  a lake.

[Celtic Rose]

I made most of my pocket money by babysitting when I was in High School, and I had a Nanny type job in college.  I realize that we are still in a recession, but I saw a sign at a hamburger joint a couple weeks advertising job openings, and babysitters and general laborers are always in demand. 

My brother is 20 and he is supposed to be looking for a summer job, but he seems to consider most of them beneath him and not worth his time.  I've tried to tell my mom that she should force him to get a job by getting him and bus pass and refusing to cover anything else other than necessities, but she hasn't taken my advise yet. 

[Chris_]

My brother is 20 and he is supposed to be looking for a summer job, but he seems to consider most of them beneath him and not worth his time.  I've tried to tell my mom that she should force him to get a job by getting him and bus pass and refusing to cover anything else other than necessities, but she hasn't taken my advise yet. 

I was lazy as sh*t after high school.  Didn't do anything... my parents should have beat me, I was so lazy.  Then they got divorced and sold their house.  Kinda had to find something to do with my time after that.

[longview]

I see a lot of lazy with the kids not working summers.  Both my youngest daughters work with landscaping crews in upstate SC when I had a contract there for a year.  But they had to prove they knew enough Spanish to work with everyone else.  The only reason they got hired, I think, is because they pushed to get the jobs.  Better money and healthier work than a fast food joint, IMO.

Youngest worked the orchards and vineyard in northern Michigan.  Again, had to know Spanish the first year, and was the only non-Mexican on the crew.  But the pay was good and she is used to outdoor work.  After the first year, the owner of the farm said if she could help him get more college kids to come work he wouldn't bus in the temps from Mexico.  He upped the wages, didn't have to pay transport, housing, insurance, permit fees, and it has worked out for two years now.  She said some of the others were really hurting at the beginning of the season, not being used to hard work, though.

[The Village Idiot]

  After the first year, the owner of the farm said if she could help him get more college kids to come work he wouldn't bus in the temps from Mexico.  He upped the wages, didn't have to pay transport, housing, insurance, permit fees, and it has worked out for two years now.  She said some of the others were really hurting at the beginning of the season, not being used to hard work, though.

LULAC is going to go after you guys!! Be careful. 

[littlelamb]

My teenage son has his own lawn cutting business in our neighborhood makes 20-25 per yard. He is up to 5 lawns and gets them all knocked out early and has pocket money and a savings account where he must deposit at least $5 of every lawn in there. He also has to donate 10% of his earnings to something charitable.

[diesel driver]

I can tell you that the USPS barely hires anyone for summer/Christmas help anymore. Hell, I no longer have a substitute carrier, so now I work 6 days, and have to borrow a sub to get some time off.

Our office is the same way....

USPS won't let the PM hire any RCA's (only TRC's), so we have 2 that service 6 routes....

Added to that, we have one carrier that will be out for 6 weeks post op, another quitting within 30 days and a third retiring after the first of the year....

The RC's call Matt and I "full-time RCA's"....  

Did your route go from a J or K to an H?  We had one that went from a K to a J, only to go back to K at the last mail count.  Right now, though, I think all our K routes will be J, and one will be a H after the next count....