BALANCEDKIDS
Summer stints
National numbers show fewer teens are taking summer jobs, but local pros say they shouldn’t discount early work experiences By McKenna Corson
T
he school bell chimes for the final time this year, symbolizing one thing: summer vacation. It means the end of homework and waking up with the sun. Summer vacation is three months of nothing but time for teenage students, but how are Northeast Ohio’s teens Del Vecchio spending that freedom? According to a 2019 Pew Research Center national study, probably not on a paying job. Only 34.6% of United States teens ages 16 to 19 had a paying summer job in 2018, compared to 51.7% in 2000. And while the number of teens working in the summer has been increasing since the greatest low of 29.6% during Dorn the Great Recession in 2010, it still begs the question of whether teens will spend their summers saving lives at local pools, or finding other, nonpaying ways to keep busy.
A SHIFTING TREND Craig Dorn, president and CEO of Youth Opportunities Unlimited in Cleveland, a nonprofit workforce development organization that helps in-need Cleveland teens and young adults find employment with programs like its Y.O.U. Summer Jobs Program, disagrees
A Youth Opportunities Unlimited teen hugs a girl she worked with during her 2019 summer job at Community Faith Assembly. | Photos / Youth Opportunities Unlimited
with Pew’s study – at least when it comes to Cuyahoga County teens dealing with financial distress. “With the young people we work with, we do not see less getting jobs,” Dorn says. “We see about the same or even more. Every year, teens and young adults almost exclusively from Cleveland and a lot of the inner-ring suburbs register with us for summer jobs and work experience. It’s been pretty stable between 13,000 and 15,000 registering over the last decade.” In fact, the number of jobs the organization has available in its “best year” – about 4,000 – may not meet the demand, he says. “(Teens not getting summer jobs) might be happening with middle-class and other teens, but it does not seem to be happening based on our experience in Cuyahoga County with teens from more economically distressed communities,” he says. On the other hand, Shannon Joherl, director of human resources at Marc’s, agrees with Pew’s study, seeing a smaller number of teens applying for the regional grocery and drug store’s summer and year-round positions. “But I don’t think it’s really impacted us as much as it may have some other companies,” Joherl says, adding many teens who work at Marc’s seek the flexible scheduling offered, and stay through the summer. Joe Del Vecchio, a financial advisor with Landolt Securities, Inc., in Solon, attributes the drop to a change in parenting style. “The younger generation, they grew up in a different environment where there were a lot more things that gave them immediate satisfaction – internet, smartphones,” Del Vecchio says. “They were taught more to be happy than to take on responsibility, that happiness is a priority. They think, ‘If our parents can help us, we’re going to value our extracurricular activities over a job.’”
BENEFITS ABOUND
A teen, right, learns about water conservation during work with the Cleveland Department of Water through his Youth Opportunities Unlimited 2019 summer job with Mayor Frank G. Jackson’s Youth Summer Internship Program.
10 | BALANCEDFAMILY | SPRING 2020
This national drop in teens holding jobs – both summer and year round – is of concern to Del Vecchio, Dorn and Joherl. All three grew up in the Cleveland-area working summer jobs as teens – Del Vecchio as an intern at Merrill Lynch, waiter at his uncle’s restaurant and selling suits at JCPenney at SouthPark Mall in Strongsville; Dorn at Davis Bakery’s now-closed University Heights location; and Joherl as a cashier at Marc’s when it was Bernie Shulman’s in Mentor. “It was a wonderful experience because I learned how much I hated food service and it super motivated me to go to college,” Dorn says. “There are so many benefits to teens working summer jobs. Research shows that when a teen works a job, they develop a work ethic and develop basic essential skills they can carry on to be very successful with whatever their career is.” Besides the obvious benefit of making money, through
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