It won't be easy for teens to find summer jobs

In a couple of months, the doors to most Utah schools will open and spill out their contents — thousands of kids — for the summer.

In the current economy, it's quite likely that it's going to be another challenging year for those ambitious teenagers hoping to find summer jobs. National reports like a recent one by the Economic Policy Institute note that a million older teens have given up and removed themselves from the employment pool before the summer search has even gotten under way. They don't intend to try.

If they're not working and they're not looking, what are they doing? I find I don't even want to let my imagination roam wild over the possibilities.

Mind you, the last few years have been no picnic for job-hungry kids. The Wall Street Journal's Sue Shellenbarger noted this week that it has been 10 full years since kids and summer jobs were an easy pairing.

On the bright side, that means most of the kids who will be looking for work this summer have some realistic expectations of how hard the search is going to be. Less clear is whether they'll have that one ingredient they really need: what my dad used to call "stick-to-it-iveness."

We now have a job market that has been pitting youngsters looking for that first-job experience against adults who've been laid off and can't find replacement work. In that environment, I find it really hard not to root for the adults. You figure the kids at least have adults in their lives who will shelter, feed and clothe them. But I also know kids need work.

The Wasatch Front offers some advantages to teens seeking employment. We have Lagoon, which typically hires a lot of young people, along with various other amusement/recreation venues. Those are among the businesses that tend to rely pretty heavily on a youthful and temporary work force. Care providers, movie theaters, restaurants, landscaping businesses and some retail outlets like clothing and accessory stores that cater to a youthful crowd are also more apt to hire its members.

Every neighborhood seems to have a couple of young entrepreneurs — the kids who had the paper route, detailed cars in their driveway, mowed lawns for pocket change and made very good money because they were in demand. Those kids are apt to fare quite well in this economic climate. They tend to start early and try new approaches.

One of my friends told me she's not encouraging her 17-year-old to look for a job this summer. She doesn't want to take anything away from adults who are searching and she's afraid he'll get discouraged and become depressed or pessimistic if he can't find anything.