<p>There have been many, many complaints on here about the lack of jobs for young people. Today the company that has cleared our snow for a few years called to say that they have to cut their client list because they cannot find anybody to work. This is not a highly skilled job. All it requires is that the person be reliable. They’ve hired many guys over the years who just don’t feel like showing up, or decide that an unskilled job should pay them $20/hr. This company now faces going out of business not because a lack of clients, but because the young people around here are too lazy. </p>
<p>The Subway shop on the corner has been advertising for weeks. The landscaping company has to bring in workers from nearby cities. Babysitters are impossible to find and getting kids to do odd jobs is unheard of.</p>
<p>I don’t know what kinds of jobs the kids on CC have been looking for, but they should move over here.</p>
<p>Lots of people are trying (unsuccessfully) to set up tents in a downtown public park. At the same time, a local TV station reports that there is a huge shortage of of apple pickers in Eastern WA - seasonal work, pays $150/day. I assume the orchard owners will not complain if the workers set up their tents nearby… :)</p>
<p>Closer to me. Maybe I should send my deadbeat renters north. Oh wait, they don’t <em>want</em> to work. They are very skilled in storytelling. How’s the outlook for that occupation?</p>
<p>Umm, $20 an hour for 10-12 times a year would be a very difficult way of making a living for any head of the household and not suitable for high school kids that need to be keeping regular hours while in school. Subway job would be ok for high schoolers but a big under employment for someone with a college degree risking a terrible mark on their professional development. Basically, these are jobs that regular college grad would not consider given what they had to go through to get their degrees. Maybe your main problem is there is not enough illegal alien in the area?</p>
<p>Hmmm, well, my teen wouldn’t want to get up at the crack of dawn to clear people’s sidewalks. </p>
<p>Then again I wouldn’t want him to do that either. Because he’s a teen. He needs sleep, and he needs to be at school early enough. </p>
<p>Cleaning snow in the wee hours shouldn’t be a job for “kids.” And this company shouldn’t want to hire them either. If they want responsible adults - they should pay them as such.</p>
<p>When I was a teen and pre-teen, I worked in the fields all summer long, from 6am to 4pm. It was what we did to earn money and thought nothing of it. I do remember seeing immigrants out there with us, but it was common for hundreds us to earn our summer money this way. And when we got older we worked in the canneries. Now, with all of the child labor regulations, most kids don’t even get to have this wonderful opportunity.</p>
<p>Obviously these aren’t the type of jobs that kids can have during the school year, but now they don’t even have the opportunity at all. Frankly, it was quite rewarding to work very hard the entire day and come home tired and sweaty.</p>
<p>Speaking of children working - in our state they have an exception in the law allowing for 14 year olds to pick tobacco. Not so much left in the state. You have to be 15 to work at a summer camp and 16 for ALL other positions. Weird.</p>
<p>I’m not necessarily saying that high school kids should plow snow in the middle of the night. Or even work in the fields. But there are certainly jobs they can do that are going begging right now. But all these unemployed people who claim they can’t find jobs are sure not jumping at the chance to earn any money until they find something better.</p>
<p>^^ But a lot of those unemployed people are being paid to be unemployed and therefore lack incentive to do work like this.</p>
<p>When I was a kid/teen I’d do all kinds of things for money including shoveling snow, delivering newspapers (including getting up very early in the morning), some construction, mowing lawns, and other things. I don’t see much enterprise by teens at least in my area. I think it’s because they don’t need to since parents are providing them with more of what they want (not just need, but want - see the iPhone thread) than a generation ago plus some other aspects like newspaper companies possibly not allowing teens to do the delivery (plus physical newspapers are a dying business anyway), more child labor laws, minimum wage laws and other regulations and edicts by the government that can reduce opportunities, more paranoid parents about letting their kids go door to door looking for yard work, etc.</p>
<p>It used to be JUST tobacco - I looked it up and now it includes agriculture and some other venues. But just 2 years ago it was only tobacco (when my D2 was 14). I am sure a holdover from the “old” days.</p>