Attitudes hold teen job seekers back, experts say

Some employers and job experts are concerned the tough economic times aren't the only things holding back teens and young adults from getting jobs.

Attitudes could come into play, too — maybe more than some parents would like to consider.

 

"Kids are texting at will," said Nancy Zambardi, a career specialist with the Troy, Mich., School District. Many also aren't willing to start at the bottom rung of the career ladder, doing manual labor with less desirable hours.

 

Janail Williams, 18, who lives in Detroit, said he was committed to sports while in high school so he found it hard to get a job while making practices and games.

He figures that this summer he might work for his father, who does home improvement work.

"They're not looking for students," said Williams, who has applied at stores and fast-food places.

Employment experts, counselors and others are concerned that the length of the recession — and growing demands on teens' time from sports to volunteering to build the right credentials for college — could create a larger pool of young people without job smarts and actual work experience.

"They're just not prepared to work," said Joy Mason, a director of youth services for MichiganWorks!

Tina Vaughan, 45, regional merchandiser for Masterpiece Flower that handles flowers at Meijer grocery store, said she had a hard time finding teens or adults who wanted jobs at $9 an hour.

Vaughan said she would have liked to hire her own 16-year-old daughter, but a student must be older than 18 to work at Meijer.

Some adults wanted her to pay them under the table, so they could keep collecting jobless benefits, she said.

Some teens didn't want to fill out the paperwork. Or they said the job seemed too hard with moving huge racks of flowers when shipments arrive at the store.

Some younger people don't really like having limits set on them and aren't afraid to say so, Zambardi said.

"Employers I've spoken to don't like confrontations but aren't happy with the dedication to the job that they are seeing in our young workers," she said.

On one hand, Karen Levinson, a youth coordinator at another MichiganWorks! center, said employers would like to hire greener workers to train according to the company's standards and operations. But employers also are looking for basic workplace maturity.

Several forces are cutting into a teen's chances to get on that first payroll:

» Regulations and restrictions limit how much people younger than 18 can work and where.

» The minimum wage has gone up in many areas, making it more costly to hire.

» The pool of available workers in their 50s or 60s has grown.

A decline in the teen share of employment in some industries indicates that younger people aren't getting jobs at traditional training grounds.

In the past decade, the teen share of restaurant employment dropped to 17 percent from 24 percent, said Michael Saltsman of the Employment Policies Institute in Washington, D.C. Part of the reason: Some jobs are being replaced with self-service alternatives because of a higher minimum wage.

Learning the rules at one job can translate to another — things such as agreeing to a work schedule and keeping it, handling a list of duties andworking with a group.

Some students don't realize that some retailers have strict rules about being on time. One minute late is late — and being late 12 times can mean you just lost that job, Levinson said.

"Or they don't know how to call in sick, so they don't show up," Mason said. "They don't know how to problem solve."