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In the United States, every summer, teenagers across the country look for paid jobs on the sidewalks. But this year, Generation Z teenagers born between 1997 and 2012 are looking for a large number of job vacancies to choose from.
Among them is 16-year-old Hayley Hamilton in Flower Hill, Texas. She recently quit her job in a pizza restaurant and believes she can find a new one in the local mall soon.
“Everyone wants to hire now,” she told Al Jazeera. “Everyone is understaffed.”
Rein Carter, a 16-year-old from Minneapolis, easily found a job in a fast food salad restaurant in April after texting the general manager, getting a phone interview, and being hired on the spot.
“My mother threatened to send me to the camp if I didn’t find a job to take responsibility and experience instead of doing nothing all summer,” Carter told Al Jazeera. “I really want to make extra money.”
In Tennessee, 19-year-old Addison Howard (Addison Howard) tested how valuable his teenage labor became when he decided to return to work at a fast food restaurant that hired him three years ago.
“When I first started working in 2018, my hourly salary was $7.50, but when I came back, they increased to $12 this summer,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that he was unwilling to accept less than $10. Hourly wage in US dollars.
In Maryland, Olivia Gyapong got a job as a cashier at the Safeway grocery store. “I just want to find a casual summer job; I don’t know what I’m going to do, but there are many places to recruit — I have many choices,” the 18-year-old told Al Jazeera.
Everyone is now looking for recruitment.
The US economy created a record 9.2 million job vacancies in May, which is the most recent month for which data are available.
Many of the begging jobs are in the customer-oriented service industry: as consumers release their pent-up demand, restaurants, bars, and retail stores are accelerating their operations.
Because they can’t be picky, many companies choose to hire teenagers, and unemployed adults — according to the US Department of Labor, there were about 8.7 million people in July — are still on the sidelines.
By the summer of 2020, less than one-third of young people nationwide will be employed. However, this year, they returned to the job market with a vengeance.
In May, 33.2% of American teenagers aged 16-19 had a job, which is the highest level since 2008. In June, the proportion of youth employment fell back to 31.9%, but in July it climbed again to 32.7%, bringing the proportion back to the previous level. -Pandemic level.
Although many entry-level jobs have common characteristics that teenagers look for—satisfying parents’ requirements or saving extra cash for purchases or college admissions—Gen Z is also learning a unique course on the traps of the American labor market, thanks to The “post” pandemic background of their employment.
Most of them are high school students, and I see them working 40 or 50 hours a week.
Enter the employment gap
The mismatch between the number of job vacancies in the United States and the number of unemployed adults has become a hot topic.
Some observers say that there are countless factors that prevent unemployed workers from finding new jobs, such as early retirement, too many companies pursuing the same skills at the same time, continued lack of childcare services, fear of contracting COVID-19, and the desire to avoid more and more Employer’s requirements for vaccines.
Many Republicans blame the state unemployment benefit for the $300 a week federal weekly subsidy because it makes adult workers more critical of the next job they will take. As a result, dozens of states — most of which are led by Republican governors — decided to withdraw before the federal unemployment benefit program expires in early September.
No matter what prevents adults from taking advantage of the job market full of opportunities, this does not prevent young people from entering into violations.
Howard and Gyapong will assume dual responsibilities this summer, balancing their service industry work for cash with other commitments they have made to advance career and public service goals. Gyapong is interning for a congressman in Washington, DC, and Howard is operating cameras for the local baseball team and managing live broadcasts and music for nearby churches.
I think it is sad that sometimes these young people work 30, 40, 50 hours a week.
Although Howard chose to be in a dilemma in different jobs, he said that many young colleagues in his service work were overworked due to chronic shortage of manpower.
“Most of them are high school students, and I see them working 40 or 50 hours a week, full-time and part-time,” he said. “Maybe their parents let them pay for college, or they are buying a car, but I think it is sad that sometimes these teenagers work 30, 40, 50 hours a week.”
Hamilton said that she and many of her part-time employees who worked in the pizzeria until June worked more than 40 hours a week, thanks in large part to the shortage of staff.
“Due to COVID and all unemployment, everyone is understaffed. Many people said,’Honestly, I don’t need this job’ and they left,” Hamilton said. “We got too much burden-we run a complete store and we are in charge of everything.”
For some of these young people, lack of training is also a problem.
“It’s a bit like we sometimes don’t know what to do. We all have a serious lack of training,” said Carter, an employee of Salad Restaurant. “I was thrown in on the first day. I still don’t know how to prepare half [the ingredients], So I just insist on what I know how to do. “
And customers do not always understand the challenges faced by Gen Z summer workers.
Hamilton said: “Adults will come in and yell at us because something is wrong or it takes too long.” “It’s just a bunch of kids working here.”
“I hope that people will be more kind to others, especially those who are just starting to work-you don’t know their story or what they are going through,” Howard said.
Rude customers, long hours of work, and lack of training make some of these young employees more compassionate towards adults who now choose not to re-enter the labor market.
Hamilton said that compared with workers who choose to stay at home to receive unemployment benefits, adult customers in pizza restaurants seem to be ignorant of the current employment situation, and she feels even more frustrated.
Gyapong believes that this “reflects how low the wages of people in this country are, and they make more money by not working”.
Howard also hopes that changes in the U.S. labor market will persuade policymakers to raise the federal minimum wage, noting that “some families work more than 40 hours just to make some pocket money.”
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