Most teens can find a job if they look hard enough.
It is around the age of 15 that many teens get the desire to work. This is because they start to need money to spend on going out with friends, dating, and even saving up to buy gas for a car. But jobs for 15 year olds are especially hard to find because most employers won’t hire kids that are under 16 years old.
The situation has gotten even worse these last two years because of the economy. It is not just teens that are willing to take that spot behind the McDonald’s counter now because many adults need any job they can get. Employers are faced with so many applicants per each job opening that they have the luxury of picking only the most qualified. That obviously will eliminate younger teens most of the time.
Jobs for 15 year olds and older are where young kids start to learn about responsibility and where they get their first glimpse into what will be expected from them the rest of their life. They need those jobs to learn what it is like to have a boss and have work where you are expected to show up on time. Summer and part time jobs for teens are where they start to learn how to deal with co-workers and customers.
Obviously, these are all lessons that are important for teens to learn. These jobs they get as teens will help them later on when they move into the work force in earnest later on. The terrible thing about this lack of jobs right now for teenagers is that so many of them are going without this “training” that will benefit them later on in life.
It hurts employers as well because we might have a generation of young adults who have never been able to learn how to deal with a job and will have more trouble than usual adapting to the workplace. If this job crises goes on for years to come, we will have a large group of kids that were never taught how to get and keep a job. They will also have not learned the things they need to know about the workplace and how to behave in it.
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