Washington-area teens crushed by several years of the worst summer employment seasons on record are beginning to see signs of hope in the recovering suburbs. Job prospects for District teens, however, are dimmer.
Overall, the region added more than 39,000 full-time jobs in the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While many of those require more savvy and smarts than the average teen can provide, the overall trend is hopeful.
“We’re creating jobs across a number of skill sets,” said Stephen Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University. “And there are part-time jobs that parallel the full-time jobs being created.”
| Get a job? Get real. | |
| Barely more than a quarter of American teens are expected to find a job this summer, compared to nearly half of them a decade ago, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. The recession hit teens’ employment prospects harder than at any time since the government started keeping track following WWII. (Source: “The Steep Decline in Teen Summer Employment in teh U.S., 2000-2010 and the Bleak Outlook for the 2011 Summer Teen Job Market”) | |
| Summer of year | Teen employment rate |
| 2005 | 36.7 percent |
| 2006 | 37 percent |
| 2007 | 34.5 percent |
| 2008 | 32.5 percent |
| 2009 | 28.5 percent |
| 2010 | 25.6 percent |
| 2011 | 27 percent (projected) |
| Source: “The steep decline in teen summer employment in the U.S. 2000-2010 and the bleak outlook for the 2011 summer teen job market” | |
Retail and trade, for example, added about 7,000 jobs from March 2010 to March 2011. Leisure and hospitality positions grew by 8,000. Even construction, one of summertime’s biggest employers, saw an increase of about 3,000 employees in Northern Virginia despite a 2,000-worker decrease in the region overall.
News of the slight recovery is tempered by the reality that teens have been enduring a higher unemployment rate than at any time in recent memory. The unemployment rate of 16- to 19-year-olds is the lowest since April 2009 but still among the highest since the early 1990s.
“The downside is that there are still a lot of people looking for work, too,” Fuller said. “They may be taking those jobs from younger people.”
That’s especially true in the District, where overall unemployment remains above 9 percent — the national average — even though the overall metropolitan area’s rate is below 6 percent.
“It’s, like, impossible,” said Talia Wallace, a 16-year-old D.C. resident strolling with a friend near Metro Center. “For all of the good jobs, you have to be at least 18. They’re mostly looking for college kids.”
Wallace, who last held a summer job in 2008, missed the March deadline for the District’s Summer Youth Employment Program. But even if she had applied in time, the number of positions was cut nearly in half this summer because of the city’s budget cuts and a more stringent hiring process.
About 12,000 District residents between 14 and 21 years old were hired for city-funded positions with employers from Georgetown University Hospital to Wachovia Bank, compared with 22,000 last summer, said a spokesman for D.C.’s Department of Employment Services.
Nationwide, the glut of teen unemployment has hit the urban poor hardest of all, said a recent report by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies. “Those youth who need work experience the most, get it the least,” said authors Andrew Sum and Joseph McLaughlin.
And in the suburbs, where employers aren’t exactly knocking down teens’ doors, some teens are getting entrepreneurial with the hope that adults are feeling a little freer with their own funds.
Joshua Rollin, an 18-year-old senior at Georgetown Day School, opted out of the job search this summer in favor of a stint playing his keyboard outside the Friendship Heights Metro station.
“I figured I’ll be working regular jobs for the rest of my life,” he said. “With this, I don’t have to worry about interviews, or about being hired, and I can focus on my music.”
And the pay isn’t bad either, he said. While most teens are lucky to make more than $10 per hour, Rollins said he made $13 in his first 20 minutes.
“And this is fun,” he said, “especially compared to retail or something.”
