I am the mother of a college student, a high school student and a middle school student. I have told them (at least my two oldest) that they have to have a full-time summer jobs (Interestingly enough, their definition of full time and mine, differ greatly. I have been discussing with them, ad nauseum, how in my mind full time is equal to 40 hours a week. In their mind, full-time means someone has agreed to pay them for their work on a weekly basis. We are still trying to come to terms with this discrepancy ).
I have been somewhat surprised about how difficult it is for students to find any employment at all ! With the economic downturn, the usual jobs for teenagers/students (hostess, wait staff, retail) are being taken by folks who will be around after the summer. Many places are not hiring at all and if they are, they don't want temporary employees.
After three weeks of diligently looking and applying for jobs that a month ago she never would have considered, my oldest has gotten a lifeguard job. For two days, she is in unpaid training an hour away from our house. She was surprised to see that there are people who were attempting to become lifegaurds who cannot swim. Thankfully, for the safety of all pool patrons, these folks were not allowed to continue the training.
This lack of summer employment is a real challenge for many families. In our house, my kids are expected to save for college. Once in college, they are expected to earn their spending money. My daughter is three weeks in to her summer break and has not worked a single paid hour yet (except for an occasional babysitting job). I don't doubt that she will earn enough this summer for the first semester, but since with a life-guarding job, you cannot return to it over Winter Break, I am fairly certain that I am going to be contributing more to her living expenses this school year than I had to last school year. Her plan is to pick up a part time job at school, but based on this experience, I don't think this is something we can count on.
And we are lucky...we have college funds put aside for our kids. But what of the families who are trying to pay as they go? Not having a summer job potentially means that many kids won't be able to go back to school in the fall.
It is a very tough situation for many students and many families. Maybe next year my kids will pay more attention when I tell them to look for summer jobs over Winter break...
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