A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
NICOLE DECOSTA / West Linn Tidings
Chelsea Jesenik of West Linn serves Lake Oswego resident Dave Norman at Rose’s Restaurant and Bakery in the Willamette district. Jesenik is one of the few teens in Oregon to land a summer job.
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I’m really lucky.”
That’s how 16-year-old Chelsea Jesenik describes landing her job at Rose’s Restaurant and Bakery in West Linn.
As a hostess at the diner known for its hearty portions and desserts, Jesenik said she knows the job market for teenagers right now isn’t as sweet as Rose’s famous Granny Apple Tarts.
She snagged the job while applying for a slew of others in the city, where she also resides.
“I thought this would be a good first job. It’s really fun,” she said. “But I know some of my friends are having trouble finding jobs this summer. They’re (going to) people trying to support a family.”
What Jesenik and friends are experiencing is not unusual.
Not this summer, at least.
A confluence of factors, the deepening recession only one among them, has made Oregon among the worst states in the country for teenage employment. And that, according to experts, could invite a whole host of problems in years to come.
“The labor market for kids has collapsed in the last nine months,” says Andrew Sum, the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “Oregon’s kids have really gotten whacked beyond belief.”
The recession means most businesses have fewer summer jobs available, Sum says. And data show that those seasonal jobs that remain are increasingly being taken by out-of-work adults.
Every summer, the Oregon Zoo hires about 150 summer employees, most part-time, to work in the zoo cafeteria, in security or in grounds maintenance. And every summer the zoo gets more applicants than the year before. In 2006, 1,678 people, most of them teens, applied for the jobs. Last year, 4,462 applied. This year, more than 7,000 have applied for the no-benefits, minimum-wage jobs.
But the growing number of people applying for summer zoo jobs isn’t what most startled zoo officials, who figured the Portland area’s high unemployment rate would have some effect. What zoo officials weren’t prepared for was having adult applicants outnumber kids this year by a ratio of 9-to-1.
As a result, most of the zoo’s summer jobs this year, some offering only about 10 hours of work a week, went to adults.
Sarah Lycett, the assistant manager at Burgerville in West Linn said that a “more than normal amount of teenagers” are applying for jobs there.
“It’s kind of shocking,” she said of how many teens are applying for jobs. “I’d say 15 percent more than normal.”
Ruben Jimenez, the second assistant manager at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries restaurant in West Linn, said dozens of teenagers have applied for positions.
“There’s too many. We can’t hire everybody,” he said, “but we’re expanding to another location in Oregon City and will soon be able to hire more (teenagers) there.”
Companies that hire youths must obtain a certificate from the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. The number of companies obtaining the certificates has held fairly steady in recent years, according to Christine Hammond, administrator of the bureau’s Wage and Hour Division.
But this year, Hammond says, the bureau has issued 13 percent fewer certificates than in the past. That tells her that fewer businesses are even considering hiring teens.
Immigrants, seniors
filling traditional
youth jobs
If there’s a traditional summer job for teens in Oregon, it’s berry picking.
But Brooke Jackson-Winegardner, an economist with the Oregon Employment Department, says farmers are telling her that adult migrant workers have mostly taken those jobs. Jackson-Winegardner says that overall, Oregon and Portland teen employment has dropped about 25 percent since its peak in 1989.
Sum’s research backs up what the farmers are saying. Beyond the recession and Oregon’s second highest in the nation unemployment rate, Oregon teens suffer because of the state’s high number of recently arrived foreign immigrants.
Adult immigrants have begun to replace teens in many traditional summer jobs, Sum says, including landscaping, unskilled construction and at fast food restaurants.
And those are jobs that traditionally were held in the summer by teenage boys.
Many of the jobs that teen girls have gravitated to over the years – child care, nurse’s aid, camp counselor, clerical work – have not been eliminated at the same rate as the traditional jobs for boys.
Sum’s research shows that in states with low rates of immigrant populations, mostly in the Midwest, teens are still working at relatively high rates.
But teenagers seeking summer jobs are being hammered by more than just newly arrived immigrants. Seniors also are putting the squeeze on them. States with large populations of senior citizens also correlate with lower teen employment, according to Sum. And Oregon’s senior population is significantly higher than the national average.
Nationally, seniors have taken between 800,000 and 900,000 jobs that used to employ teens, most in retail malls and fast food restaurants, according to Sum. Until recently, he points out, grocery store baggers and clerks were almost always teenagers. Now, un-retired seniors are just as common in those jobs.
The minimum wage is also a factor, Sum says. His charts correlate a rising minimum wage with lower teen employment. Oregon’s minimum wage – which, unlike some states, is tied to the consumer price index – rose 45 cents last year to $8.40 an hour.
“The evidence is pretty overwhelming that kids get beat up a lot from raising the minimum wage that fast and that high,” Sum says.
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