When I was in college (20+ years ago) I worked retail and was scheduled 4-5 days a week
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Anonymous
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College was paid by my parents. I worked retail to cover my basic living expenses and to also have some extra spending money. I was regularly scheduled between 4-5 days a week and if I wanted to pick up an extra shift there was always one available just as long as I did not go over 40 hours.
Now let us fast forward 20 years. My nieces and nephews, not only is their college not already paid for but they are lucky if they are scheduled even 2 days a week if they try and work any retail job. On top of that, basic living expenses continue to go up. What is a young person today supposed to do? Depend on their parents to also cover their basic living expenses in addition to also providing some spending money? Why are retail employers reluctant to schedule their part timers to more than 1-2 days a week? |
Anonymous
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They keep their part timers well under full time hours so they don't have to pay them benefits. My manager would send me home if I was anywhere close to the cap.
20 years ago in college I literally cobbled together three different part time jobs, plus any other sources of income I could fine (psych studies). I had a scholarship and my parents helped some with tuition. Many of my classmates just had parental support. |
Anonymous
1-2 days is becoming the norm unfortunately. On a side note, UPS frequently delivers my packages to the wrong address. While attempting to locate my lost packages, I managed to become on a first name basis with one of their customer center employees and she informed she is scheduled 5 days a week but only 4 hours a day. |
Anonymous
| They just want to hire fewer people period. Consultants told them they could save money with fewer shifts. |
Anonymous
| I babysat in college, loved those jobs. Often was doing mornings/dropoff then pickups/evening, classes in between. |
Anonymous
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Why does it have to be retail? My kid started as a food-runner during his first semester while in community college making $19 an hour (Tyson's corner). He has been working 30+ hours a week, but the need is 40+ hours.
He is about to become a server and servers make $40-$45 an hour. I invested only $6k in 2007-2010 into 529, which grew into $26k. The kid got 30 credits transferred and cc is cheap. In-state will cost only $40k in total for years 3-4. We are not taking out loans, and haven't even bothered with grants yet. His workplace is hiring and so is mine if you are in DMV. He files his own taxes, no tax on tips, and gets a refund that pays for 2 of his classes. I was an international student with no right to work everywhere, limited hours, no support from family, no loans, and I paid 2.5x what everyone else paid. My employer also kept a lot of my money as they knew I couldn't speak up. When I compare my life to my kid's life, he has it easy. He has money left over to invest. I think he has saved up $7k already. 4k went into Roth for 2025. This year he will max out to $7500, the rest goes into investment account. |
Anonymous
| I work retail as a second job; I am scheduled for about 10 hours a week. All of the part time employees work about 10-12 hours a week. It gets frustrating because management can’t go over payroll for the week and its influx if the week’s net sales are down. |
Anonymous
| My dd works at a chain coffee place and she has 1 shift a week right now. She can occasionally pick up one or two more. They have so many employees. |
Anonymous
this would be a perfect retirement gig for me. still getting up and out the house every day but just four hours of work. |
Anonymous
Why does it have to be retail? Because this thread is a retail thread. I am sure there are college aged students out there somewhere flipping houses for $100k profits per property so obviously this thread does not apply to them. |
Anonymous
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Because the USA is post-boom cycle, OP. The biggest mistake people make is assuming that countries' economies do not change and that they can have the same lifestyle as their parents, or better. These assumptions are entirely unreasonable, since new technology drives the global economy and human beings find it very hard to predict where it's going to lead in the future, and which country will suddenly find itself with an economic advantage or an economic vulnerability.
We are now experiencing a rebalancing of the world powers, from a post-WWII American ultra-supremacy to a different equilibrium, with China as an equal power. There is no domestic policy in the world that can offset that, unless you're looking at drastic shifts in work-life balance and a reframing of societal expectations (like what happened to Japan post WWII - it was brutal). It's not any President's fault, whether right or left, that the USA has declined in economic influence. There are just too many global factors at play. |
Anonymous
I sympathize with you. But there is always going to be some random DCUM poster who will say something like... "Why not start an auto repair side business in your back yard like my husband does?" |
Anonymous
Again, I sympathize with you. But there is always going to be some random DCUM poster who will say something like... "Why not start flipping houses for $100k profits per property like my son did when he was in college?" |
Anonymous
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My 16 year old has applied to at least 30 jobs and has gotten one interview at McDonalds. They didn't like his availability because he is in high school full time. He said he could work evenings and weekends and they said no. His group of friends the only one getting hired are lifeguards.
Many of the jobs teenagers got in past years are being done by recent immigrants or other adults. Most places want you to be over 18. |
Anonymous
Pools, camps, retail. County and city pools have no life guarding jobs. |