Summer job outlook: could be tough for teens

Ask Clifton Price where he would be without job training and the teen sums it up in a word.

“Lost.“

The junior at John Marshall High School in Richmond applied unsuccessfully several times for jobs at local supermarkets and retail stores.

Sometimes prospective employers said they would be in touch but never called. Other times they said he wasn’t old enough. “It was hard,“ he said.

For teens looking for work this summer, the outlook nationally appears bleak. Locally it’s a mixed bag.

Nationwide, the percentage of teens working this summer is expected to be at the lowest level since the end of World War II, said Andrew Sum, a professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

About 34 percent of all teens between ages 16 and 19 will have a job this summer, down from 45 percent in 2000, Sum’s research found.

Forty-nine percent of hiring managers representing hourly employers, such as retailers

and restaurants where many teens work, do not plan to take on new seasonal workers in 2008, according to a study commissioned by SnagAJob.com, the Henrico County-based job Web site that caters to hourly and part-time workers.

The causes of the slump in teen hiring are many — a slowing economy, retirees coming back into the market, college students taking hourly jobs as they search for career-path employment.

When the economy is in a recession, teens tend to be the ones to lose jobs first, according to a report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Those with little or no work experience tend to have a harder time finding jobs.

“It’s going to be a crazy summer if we don’t get these kids on the path to getting job skills,“ said Todd Elliott, program director for the Northside Youth Initiative, which operates a career program for those between ages 14 and 24.

While Sum predicted a harsh national outlook, an economist with the Virginia Employment Commission thinks the state will fare better.

One reason is that the tourism and hospitality industries employ a lot of teens, said William F. Mezger, the commission’s chief economist.

Kings Dominion, for instance, hires about 900 teens during the season. The northern Hanover County theme park employs a total of between 2,500 and 3,000 people seasonally each year, and the number of applicants and workers has remained steady in recent years.

Tre Brown, 17, from Highland Springs, landed a job at the park last year and was rehired this year as a sales associate who entertains guests as they compete for prizes at carnival games.

“It helps me pay for anything I want,“ he said. “Gas money, lunch money and anything I want to spend my money on.“

Income and race sometimes play a factor in teen employment.

Teens from higher-income families tend to have cars and live near malls in suburban areas where there are retail opportunities. They also often have working parents who can help them get a job or provide tips on how to land employment, Sum said.

But black teens from low-income families making less than $20,000 face a more dire reality. In 2007, 19 percent of black teens seeking employment had a job, while 36 percent of low-income white teens ages 16-19 found employment, his research found.

In low-income areas, there aren’t as many jobs in the neighborhoods and parents often don’t work or have less ability to help their children enter the job market, the researcher said.

The issue hits Richmond, where 18.5 percent of residents in 2005 lived in poverty, according to a study by John V. Moeser, professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Henrico County had 8.2 percent of its residents living in poverty, followed by Chesterfield County’s 7 percent and Hanover County’s 5.4 percent.

“These are urban issues,“ said Clara James Scott, principal of the Adult Career Development Center, which serves high school students who want a diploma, people seeking a GED and adults wanting career education.

Many of its students come from one-parent homes or live with siblings or on their own. Some are parents or pregnant. Most don’t have role models, let alone work mentors.

“We don’t have the crème de le crème,“ Scott said. “This may be the first person employed in their family.“

In a career employment class, for instance, 21 of the 38 students are looking for jobs.

Another issue facing teens seeking work is transportation.

Brown can get to his job at Kings Dominion thanks to his mom, who usually gives him a ride. He often can grab a ride home with friends.

Not all teens are so fortunate.

“Transportation is a big thing,“ said Scott, the school principal.

Kings Dominion, for instance, is 24 miles from downtown Richmond and stopped offering employee buses between the park and the city several years ago.

Working close to home is key for low-income teens who rarely have transportation, said Valerie James-Gilbert, who teaches an education for employment class at the Adult Career Development Center.

Bus routes rarely run early or late enough or even to the right places, she said.

Neighborhood groups have been trying to fill the gap in getting young people employable.

Price, the John Marshall junior looking for a job, lives with his mother and sister. His only job had been as a personal assistant to an elderly neighbor.

He needed experience and was referred to the William Byrd Community House, which runs a career program for 14- to 24-year-olds called Visioning for Success.

The course covers some basics: how to dress, how to behave at work, how to communicate.

But it also teaches about the economy and gets students to think about where they want their lives to go. After graduating from the program, they are placed in a summer job.

Price, 18, completed the program recently and will start his job — he hasn’t been assigned yet — after the school year ends, as all participants do.

He considers himself lucky.

“I came here and they brought light into my eyes,“ said Jermaine Carrington, 19, who is going through the program now. “If you ain’t got a plan, you plan to fail. You’ve got to do something.“

Getting a job now is important to future job development, said Sum, the Northeastern University professor.

The earlier a person goes to work, the better the outlook for future employment, he said. And getting a first job can be tough because employers tend to want people with experience.

“You don’t work now, you won’t work next year because you don’t have employability skills,“ Sum said.

That increases the chances that teens will be “unemployed, underemployed and poor when they are 25,“ he said.

Contact Emily C. Dooley at (804) 649-6016 or .