Get a Job

Youth programs are always struggling to help young people gain employment. Particularly in programs for at-risk youth, helping them find a way to support themselves is one of our greatest challenges. I don’t have to list all the reasons why this outcome is challenging – most of you are familiar with the issues that stem from delayed development, lack of support or stable housing, drugs and alcohol, and on and on. Instead, I’m going to take this opportunity to add to the list.

A survey was conducted by Teens4Hire.org, a California-based, but nationally-focused, teen job website (a link to the site is in the Web Resources section of the InterNetwork for Youth, under Recommended Links for Young People). The survey concluded that if you are a teen, your chances of landing a job this summer are slim. The reason this is true, however, may be different than you’d guess.

The survey focused on businesses that have traditionally hired teens in the past and discovered that these businesses are becoming more and more reluctant to continue to hire teens. AHA! I HEARD THAT THOUGHT! Your mind went to poor employment skills, and undependability; that’s why they’re becoming reluctant. Come on, admit it – at least for a split second, that’s where your thoughts went. I know mine did, but I was wrong. They’re becoming reluctant to hire teens due to the convergence of the availability of other workers and child labor laws.

Child labor laws, intended to protect children from injury and exploitation, may increasingly be protecting them from employment. Businesses have difficulty competing if their labor force is restricted in the number of hours they can work, and the times they can be on the job. Teens are restricted from doing jobs that are ‘hazardous’, limiting their value in industries such as construction or meat-packing, or even ‘non-hazardous’ industries where some kind of machine is in use, as many of the child labor law guidelines would restrict teens from operating things like mixers. Now, combine this legal limitation to their value as workers with a growing alternative workforce consisting of new immigrants, older workers over 55, and college students home for the summer who are unable to obtain jobs in their majors, and you have a recipe for unemployed teens looking for other things to do with their time.

Am I advocating the abolition of child labor laws? No … well, at least not in this blog entry. I’m simply pointing out that if we want teens to work, we should find ways to make it easier, not more difficult, for them to do so.