“Teens were basically pushed out of the market. They continue to have opportunities in the classic summer job settings, such as summer camps, neighborhood pools, amusement parks,” said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas company, which analyzes employment data. “The number of these jobs is not really growing. We don’t see a dozen new amusement parks or summer camps start up every year. Restaurants and retail outlets are still hiring teens, but not as many as in the past, because they simply don’t need as many workers to meet seasonal demand.”
May marked the beginning of the summer hiring surge, which over the previous five years has seen an average of about 1.3 million teens added to the workforce between May 1 and July 31. This was the slowest start to the summer hiring season since 2011, when just 71,000 teenagers found jobs in May.
Challenger said some teens are choosing not to work — instead they volunteer, enroll in educational programs, or make money in an “entrepreneurial” fashion. Researchers said fewer younger people have joined the workforce for several reasons: fewer low-skill, entry-level jobs; more high schools start before Labor Day; and more students are studying over the summer.
Of the 20 people employed by Tom Temple at The Jug in Middletown, about 11 are teenagers.
Being able to hire older workers can make the running the drive-in eatery a much easier endeavor, as opposed to the challenge of having to rely on teens whose schedule revolves around the school year, Temple said.
“When school starts, I don’t have anybody to work here during the day,” he said. “It’s probably why a lot of the restaurants like ours close when school starts because they just can’t find people to help.”
More and more, the teens who do apply for a position are on the younger side, because older teens are not looking for a job, Temple said.
“Those that graduate, they’re going to be leaving for college, so a lot of them don’t even look for a job and if they don’t they can’t work very long,” he said. “I’ve got several that I’m losing in August. I can’t complain that they’re going to college but I can’t seem to find people to replace them.”
Stewart Leonard, manager for Ohio Means Jobs-Butler County, said the challenge is not so much for teens finding a job as it is for the employer who would gladly hire a teen but find their proverbial hands tied by governmental restrictions.
Those rules for those under 18 years of age can include everything from a limit on hours to eight a day and a requirement for employers keep a log book to certain jobs mandating a plethora of rules.
“You can’t work them (teens) after 8 o’clock (p.m.),” Leonard said, listing off numerous restrictions. “They can’t work around any type of cutting of meats, bricks, tiles. They can’t operate machinery, so that kind of eliminates landscaping and lawn mowing. They can’t work around chemicals, so that rules out painting and landscaping. They can’t stock shelves because they have to have a box cutter to open boxes and they can’t have any type of cutting tools. There’s jobs that teens can do, but the state is restricting the employer from letting them do it.”
In addition, many teens in recent years have opted to accrue college credits during summer months to more quickly “get a degree and get to work” instead of working a low-paying summer job that affords them little more than the chance to make spending cash, Leonard said.
Ohio Means Jobs-Butler County works with its youth contractor, Easter Seals TriState, to help younger workers by placing them with non-profit organization, where they can tackle tasks like filing documents and answering phone calls, he said.
Typically, most options for teens are limited to seasonal places, like amusement parks and ice cream parlors, or fast-food restaurants looking to bolster summer staffing, Leonard said.
At Kings Island, one of the largest seasonal employers in the area, around 4,200 jobs are filled each summer.
“Now that kids are out of school, our numbers are where they traditionally are going into the peak season,” said Don Helbig, public relations area manager for the amusement park.
Hiring at the Warren County amusement park has been stable in recent years, despite a national trend downward, but the park still faces hurdles, Helbig said.
“Every year it becomes a little bit more challenging because of the way school can fall,” he said. “Some are going deeper into the summer and some are starting earlier, so it becomes a challenging every year.”
Kings Island begins operating in April and closes in late October. Staffing is highest between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Seasonal staffing efforts begin in winter and hiring numbers are usually high, but starting dates vary because of school.
“It’s always a challenge,” Helbig said of the yearly hiring process. “As you get toward the start of the season, as you get closer to daily operations and closer to Memorial Day, you see the application flow increase. You would rather have those applications in January, February or March, but eventually they get there.”
Helbig said hiring continues throughout the summer, especially for lifeguards, considering the certification needed for those jobs. The park offers free training on site for those wanting to be a lifeguard at Soak City Water Park.
One of the advantages Kings Island has is the potential for summer jobs to turn into full time jobs in the future, Helbig said. More than 60 percent of the park’s current full-time staff began as seasonal employees.
“As competitive as the job market is, if you find something here you like and see an opportunity, that’s another benefit of working at the park,” Helbig said.
Grant Fischer, 17, works at The Cone in West Chester Twp. The rising Badin High School senior said he works at the ice cream parlor even when school is in session and finds the establishment accommodating to school-related activities.
“During the summer, I don’t do a lot of school stuff,” Fischer said. “Once school starts again I can balance it very well. They’re really flexible. If it’s a school thing they say ‘school comes first’.”
The Cone’s season runs from April until October. The business hires 50 high school sophomores and juniors for every season. Fischer said The Cone has had no trouble finding staff for this season.
“We have a pretty good level of staff,” Fischer said. “We have a lot of candidates to interview.”
Fischer said most of his friends also work during the summer, some more than others, but a majority opt for jobs instead of other summer activities.
“I work mainly because I need gas money and it gives me something to do,” Fischer said. “My dad always taught me responsibility and working at a young age shows responsibility.”
George Schmidt, president of Levajo Inc., which owns and operates three McDonald’s restaurants in Hamilton and employs 240 people, said he sees a “steady flow of applications” from people of all ages and continues to hire teenagers on a year-round basis.
Teens constitute about 25 percent of Levajo’s workforce, and Schmidt said many employees use that first-time at McDonald’s as a springboard to not only a steady, reliable job to return to each summer or school break, but also a resume-builder for their future career.
“We’ve had three generations of families work for us,” he said. “The satisfying thing is how many people go on and choose a career, whether it’s law enforcement, firefighters, teachers, it’s always nice (to hear) that the first job they had was at McDonald’s and they always say they learned a lot.”
About the Author
