Business

For Teens, Fewer Summer Jobs

By Tylan Porterfield

Staff writer

For teens, finding a summer job can be hard to do.

“Even if you apply for a fast-food restaurant, companies are looking for prior experience,” said Maddison Harris, 17, of the Bronx.

This summer, she is working as a camp counselor at the Bronx Melrose Classic, a position she landed through the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). She’d applied to the program five times before getting a job. Some students complain that SYEP doesn’t provide nearly enough jobs.

“To me finding a job in the city is basically like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Harris said.

Part of the problem, Harris and others said, is the way the program is designed.

“There is a lottery, where you apply, and the first round of jobs goes to people living in subsidized housing. So, you’re blocked out even more,” said Kiara McCain, 17, of Jamaica, Queens. “Second round [goes to teens who’ve] been in the program before. “

Most of the SYEP jobs, she said, go to takers in those first two rounds.

Also, SYEP guarantees teens just one year of employment and a maximum of 25 hours per week of work. After that, students must re-apply. “Yeah, even though I have my job now, I’ve already started my application for next year’s program,” McCain said.

Some students who do get jobs through SYEP also wind up getting a second summer job, said Harris, who is looking for a second position.

Thirty-six percent teens worked summer jobs in 2018, down from about 51.7 percent in 2000, according to a June 2019 report from Pew Research Center.

“And when teens do get summer jobs,” Pew researchers wrote, “they’re more likely to busing tables or tending a grill than staffing a mall boutique or souvenir stand.”

Some positions reserved for teens pay nothing. McCain’s first job was unpaid, an internship with Dress for Success, a worldwide nonprofit providing office attire mainly for low-income women who are entering and re-entering the work world.

“My job last year they didn’t have enough money to pay interns,” she said. “So, I was, like, ‘OK, I’m not gonna work,” McCain said. But she didn’t find a paying position. A friend who was heading to college introduced to her to his supervisors at Dress for Success, where he’d been an intern.

Some companies that do consider hiring teens sometimes face their own obstacles, said Steven Martinez, manager of Gong Cha, an East 14^th Street bubble tea shop.

“It’s not that we don’t want the help,” Martinez said. “It’s hard to find crucial training time in the midst of crazy work days, and people with prior experience require less training.”