The first thing I learned about summer jobs was that I wasn’t likely to get one.
I got this lesson in May of senior year, when my mom saw me feebly Googling job applications and told me to walk around the mall and hand out my resume. The managers sneered at my too-few free hours swallowed by clubs and schoolwork. Or they said their positions were already taken by my new nemesis: College students.
I was not alone in these troubles. Teens have been dropping out of the labor force for decades, according to Census data. Between 2005 and 2009, 40% of New Jersey teens had some kind of job, but that number dropped during the recession and never rebounded. Now, only 31% of 16- to 19-year-olds have a job or are looking for one.
“School attendance and college enrollment has risen ... and teens are taking more strenuous coursework," said Yana Rodgers, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. “The typical teen job doesn’t look good on your college resume.”
Along with harder classes and summertime prep, more kids are devoting their free time to volunteer work, clubs and sports, Rodgers said. But there seems to be a class divide: Plenty of teens still have to work to support themselves or their families.
White teens tend to get jobs at higher rates than black or Hispanic teens, Census data shows, but that might be changing. White teens had a 7 percentage point lead over black teens in 2007, but that gap has disappeared. “It has disproportionately fallen on minority teens to work," Rodgers said.
But before you point fingers at entitled youth, keep in mind that kids today also face more competition from other age groups — senior citizens, recent grads and yes, current college students, Rodgers said.
John Berruti has the opposite problem. The owner of Summer Sweets, an ice cream shop in Lavallette, said he gets applications from 15- and 16-year-olds but sees fewer and fewer from older teens. He has a hard time hiring young workers, though, because New Jersey law restricts the hours they can work.
He said the new minimum wage increase will limit his hiring further. “Am I going to employ a 16-year-old at $15 an hour or a more experienced person I don’t have to train as much?” Berruti said.
Michele Siekerka, CEO of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said the industry group was seeing the same concern among other business owners. While the increase begins in 2020, “the tourism industry is preparing for that future and are concerned what the impact will be on their hiring and costs,” she said in an emailed statement.
Rodgers cautioned that some studies have found a connection between minimum wage increases and teen unemployment, but others haven’t. “It’s controversial,” she said.
Also controversial is another claimed cause: A generation-wide case of laziness. “Teens don’t want to work, they just want to sit at home," said Mike Jurusz, owner of Chef Mike’s ABG in Seaside Park. “They say they can’t work weekends because ‘that’s when I hang out with my friends.’"
Berruti, who hosts a podcast with Jurusz, had a softer take. “Most of them are good kids,” he said. He has them put their phone in a “phone jail” so they’re not glued to it all night — but he has the same issues with adults, too. “We have 50-year-olds who can’t stay off of Facebook,” he said.
“Look, I started working at eight, cause my family owned an Italian restaurant. And my dad always said, ‘these kids are not the same as they used to be,’” he said.
Those same teenagers, it’s worth pointing out, are also taking more high-level math and science courses and college prep courses than ever before.
Tyler Rasinski, a college freshman from Jackson, said his reluctance at first was being too shy to go out in the public eye and ask for one. “I just didn’t feel like I was ready for one and my parents never really pushed me to get one so I just got complacent," he said in an online chat.
After a nerve-wracking interview, he spent a summer selling clothes. He said he learned how to remain calm in stressful situations and “how to talk to those who are superior to you,” he said.
I, too, got my first job from an on-the-spot interview at a tutoring center, eventually dispelling the complaints of older relatives that I spent too much time with my nose in a book. Now, in my 20s, I find myself wondering how long it will be before I begin complaining about the youths.
Erin Petenko may be reached at epetenko@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @EPetenko. Find NJ.com on Facebook.