It's a good time for teens to find jobs
Jun. 12—Teens looking for work will find it, as long as employers are willing to hire them. Unemployment is under 4% overall, and the rate for teens 16-19 was just over 10% in April, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to the Associated Press, today's level of teen employment isn't close to what it used to be. In August 1978, 50% of America's teenagers were working. Around 2000, teenage employment went into a decade-long slide. In June 2010, during the agonizingly slow recovery from the 2007-2009 Great Recession, teenage employment bottomed at 25% before slowly rising again as the economy recovered.
The pandemic didn't do any favors for them either as businesses closed, cut back hours and limited contact for some time.
But teens can find jobs at restaurants, grocery stores, retailers and more if they look. And internships are also available with manufacturers, hospitals and other health care facilities.
Allow me to brag for a moment on my son.
He started working at a sandwich shop at 16 and continued when he started at ICC following his graduation from Tupelo High in 2020.
He is majoring in graphic art and design and has a dream to work at Disney, and in particular the famous Walt Disney Imagineering. So when he heard about the Disney College Program, he jumped at the chance.
The Disney College Program is a national internship program operated by the Disney Programs division of The Walt Disney Company, located at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando and the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. The program recruits college students (ages 18 and older) of all majors for a semester-long paid internship program working at either the Orlando or Anaheim resorts, with the option of extending to almost a full year.
He applied last spring but was declined. Some 50,000 students apply each term and only 4,000 to 5,000 are invited. I told him not to be discouraged, to try again. And last fall, he got the email he had hoped for — an invitation to DCP.
He started in Orlando in late January and was supposed to come home this week. But in April, he was offered an extension and now will be there until January 2023.
Is he immersed in graphic art and design? Not at all. He's working full-time at the Art of Animation resort, but in hospitality. He's also worked at EPCOT, Typhoon Lagoon, Port Orleans and ESPN. And he loves it (for the most part).
Let's be honest: Disney is using cheaper labor and not having to pay benefits to them. But for the teens, they don't really think about that. They're working at Disney. They get to go to the parks. They're earning some money.
But he also is learning about the renowned Disney way of doing things. He's behind the scenes seeing how Disney runs its business and operations, like marketing, entertainment and costuming. He's learning about the operations and management of the resorts and the hospitality side of the business. They aren't classes per se, but he's learning through simply going to work. He has leaders and coordinators — the equivalent of managers and supervisors — showing him the way.
He's also been introduced to the six-day workweek and overtime. And with his rent automatically taken out weekly to pay for his Disney-provided apartment, leaving him with little remaining, he's discovered that adulting is fun.
Will he land a job at Disney after his internship? Perhaps. If not, he'll have learned quite a lot that he can put to use elsewhere.
Not everyone can or wants to work at Disney, and that's fine. But having teens work at an early age to develop life skills, as well as learn some financial responsibility, is invaluable.
