A summer bummer: the teen job market

With unemployment up, adults are encroaching on typical teen job territory

By Peter Korn And Anthony Roberts

The Clackamas Review, Jul 7, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

<< Prev. Page 1 | 2

Sum’s research backs up what the farmers are saying. Beyond the recession and Oregon’s second-highest-in-the -nation unemployment rate, Oregon teens suffer because of the state’s high number of recently arrived foreign immigrants.

Adult immigrants have begun to replace teens in many traditional summer jobs, Sum said, including landscaping, unskilled construction and at fast food restaurants. And those are jobs that traditionally were held in the summer by teenage boys. Many of the jobs that teen girls have gravitated to over the years – child care, nurse’s aid, camp counselor, clerical work– have not been eliminated at the same rate as the traditional jobs for boys.

Sum’s research shows that in states with low rates of immigrant populations, mostly in the Midwest, teens are still working at relatively high rates. But teenagers seeking summer jobs are being hammered by more than just newly arrived immigrants. Seniors also are putting the squeeze on them. States with large populations of senior citizens also correlate with lower teen employment, according to Sum. And Oregon’s senior population is significantly higher than the national average.

Nationally, seniors have taken between 800,000 and 900,000 jobs that used to employ teens, most in retail malls and fast food restaurants, according to Sum. Until recently, he points out, grocery store baggers and clerks were almost always teenagers. Now, un-retired seniors are just as common in those jobs.

The minimum wage is also a factor, Sum said. His charts correlate a rising minimum wage with lower teen employment. Oregon’s minimum wage – which, unlike some states, is tied to the consumer price index – rose 45 cents last year to $8.40 an hour.

“The evidence is pretty overwhelming that kids get beat up a lot from raising the minimum wage that fast and that high,” Sum said.

Teen unemployment can have dire effects

The statistics get even worse, Sum said, when you look at Oregon teens who are classified as “underutilized.”

According to Sum, 38 percent of all Oregon teens who want work are either unemployed, have given up looking for jobs or are working at part-time jobs even though they’d like full-time employment. That rate is among the worst in the nation, Sum said.

It’s also dangerous, Sum said, because teens who have stopped looking for work are an especially bad predictor for the future. “You find it harder to get back into the labor market when you withdraw,” he said.

Some preliminary research indicates that higher rates of unemployed youths, especially in cities, can lead to an increase in property crime. One Massachusetts Institute of Technology study correlated higher teen pregnancy rates with girls living in areas where there were fewer teen job opportunities.

Summer jobs represent more than a few months of work, Sum said. Typically, they lead to winter jobs. And overall teen employment correlates with employment later on.

“The more we work when we’re 16 or 17, the more we’ll work in our late teens and mid-20s. We’ll work more and earn more because of the work experiences we gathered,” Sum said.

All of which is good reason for Erika Halloran to be feeling lucky. The 16-year-old senior from Lake Oswego’s Lakeridge High School found a job two weeks ago at a local Burgerville. During the course of a month, she’d applied to a dozen different grocery stores, retail shops and fast food outlets. “Anything that was close to my house,” she said. “I couldn’t really afford to be picky.”

Halloran actually thought she had another job secured for the summer serving meals to children at a Portland Police Activities League sponsored camp. But money for that job came from federal stimulus funds targeted for disadvantaged teens.

Most of her friends, Halloran said, have not been so lucky and are still looking for summer jobs, or giving up. The minimum wage Burgerville job – 10 hours one week, 20 hours the next – is far from the full-time job she had once envisioned getting. But getting it has taught her a lesson. Halloran said she’s going to keep working at Burgerville right through the school year so she has the job secured for next summer.

<< Prev. Page 1 | 2

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit