How to get teens to work?

[Anonymous]

I started working at the age of 16, in Giant Food.
Now there a huge work shortage and mostly because teens are at home playing video games or doing silly Dance videos.. Parents should make kids go to work. They are now paying kids $15-17 dollars an hour to work…..my first minimum wage job I was making $1.50 an hour I will have to work 10 hours to make what they are making now. There shouldn’t be a reason why there so many people not working.

[Anonymous]

Nag them and set ultimatums. STOP paying for the phone.

[Anonymous]

Stop paying for their things. Phone bill, non-essential food, clothes, shoes, etc.

They'll get a job when parents quit coddling them.

[Anonymous]

My daughter really wanted to work and got 2 jobs at 14. One at a summer camp and one at an event venue, but neither pays minimum wage because she isn’t old enough to get minimum wage. I told my younger daughter she won’t need to work at 14 but she also likes the idea. I don’t know. The potential exists that I’m an awful person to be around and they just want to get away from me? Otherwise, I don’t think that I *did* anything to make them want to do it.

[Anonymous]

Do you have teens, OP? Are you asking for advice on how to convince YOUR kids to get a job, or do you just think other people's kids should be working?

The thing about this "employee shortage" is that it's a bit more complicated than that. Yes, businesses want employees--but they don't want a teen that can't work on weekdays before school gets out, or that is restricted from working past/more than certain hours because they are under 18, etc. Stores want employees with "open availability"--willing to work any day (including weekends, holidays, etc.) at any time. Stores won't give a full time schedule--they'll schedule according to THEIR needs, which might mean 35 hours one week, but only 12 the next.

[Anonymous]

My teen is dying to work and had a lot of trouble getting a job. He submitted dozens of online applications and heard back from almost no one. Maybe this os because he had nothing to put but volunteer gigs in the “previous experience”? Anyway, I keep hearing abt all the jobs going infilled but my teen got almost no response. (And these were definitely teen appropriate jobs-he wasn’t shooting high or anything.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have teens, OP? Are you asking for advice on how to convince YOUR kids to get a job, or do you just think other people's kids should be working?

The thing about this "employee shortage" is that it's a bit more complicated than that. Yes, businesses want employees--but they don't want a teen that can't work on weekdays before school gets out, or that is restricted from working past/more than certain hours because they are under 18, etc. Stores want employees with "open availability"--willing to work any day (including weekends, holidays, etc.) at any time. Stores won't give a full time schedule--they'll schedule according to THEIR needs, which might mean 35 hours one week, but only 12 the next.

+1. They also want on call scheduling which is basically the employee being available to work if called in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My teen is dying to work and had a lot of trouble getting a job. He submitted dozens of online applications and heard back from almost no one. Maybe this os because he had nothing to put but volunteer gigs in the “previous experience”? Anyway, I keep hearing abt all the jobs going infilled but my teen got almost no response. (And these were definitely teen appropriate jobs-he wasn’t shooting high or anything.)

Sometimes I think they’re worried the teen will quit when school starts.

[Anonymous]

What do you say when they tell you they didn’t ask to be born?

[Anonymous]

I have three kids - two got part time jobs in high school. The one who didn't had multiple arts commitments during high school.

They did it for spending money and they got their jobs through word of mouth and one job through the high school guidance office. The jobs were all walking distance. They all went on to top 25 schools, including one ivy.

[Anonymous]

No way, most kids I know desperately want jobs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No way, most kids I know desperately want jobs!

Same! This is the same as all the other labor shortages — people want to work but not in the conditions the jobs want to hurt them for. For retail, stores want adults who can work whenever, not teens with restricted schedules.

[Anonymous]

These jobs are not good for career they should be doing tech or legal work or something related to their future

[Anonymous]

I don't buy this. My motivated to work teen has never had trouble finding work and has had 4 W-2 jobs from ages 15-18. No connections, just walking into stores or applying for jobs online completely on her own. For her first job, she walked around the mall with her resume until someone hired her on the spot. And yes, that first crappy retail job had bad hours and sucked. But she worked hard, earned a lot and now has a really good job three summers later. I think some kids don't want to take that first yuck job or put up with less than ideal conditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I started working at the age of 16, in Giant Food.
Now there a huge work shortage and mostly because teens are at home playing video games or doing silly Dance videos.. Parents should make kids go to work. They are now paying kids $15-17 dollars an hour to work…..my first minimum wage job I was making $1.50 an hour I will have to work 10 hours to make what they are making now. There shouldn’t be a reason why there so many people not working.

Are you that much of a moron? You
think the teens were all fully employed until 2021 when the labor shortage started?