Tending Business by Serving Youth

Traditionally, teen-agers looking for a summer job have been in a seller’s market. The rule was to apply early and often, and hope you would find an interesting job paying more than minimum wage. But most teen-agers settled for routine work paying the minimum, and they were just happy they didn’t end up selling vacuum cleaners door to door.

This annual rite of summer is changing, however. The declining teen-age population is turning the summer job hunt into a buyer’s market.

As a result, some teen-agers can, and do, turn down jobs because the pay is too low ($4.25 an hour), the work is less than desirable (flipping hamburgers), or the job would interfere with the family vacation or other interests.

Ironically for some employers, the teen-agers who can afford to be the choosiest often live in affluent communities where the demand for services--and therefore service workers--is the greatest.

So employers who depend heavily on minimum-wage workers are beginning to raise salaries, improve benefits and broaden recruiting efforts. This seems to be a case where the law of supply and demand should benefit teen-agers in minority communities, where unemployment rates are high.

But, like most things in life, it’s not that simple. And the reasons that it’s not are a microcosm of larger community problems.

For starters, there’s the public transportation problem. Most bus and trolley lines run into and out of downtown. If you are a teen-ager in Southeast San Diego trying to get to a job in La Jolla, good luck. It could be a long ride.

Then there’s the drug problem. Not only is the chance to earn big bucks selling crack cocaine more enticing to some youths than selling hamburgers, but many teens fail pre-employment drug tests. One youth employment agency said that, out of 400 applicants screened recently, 100 failed the drug test.

What’s worse, 200 of the applicants could not pass the reading test for the job. Both employers and youth agencies say this is not uncommon.

So far, companies have dealt with these problems primarily by increasing wages and benefits to attract more of the qualified teen-agers. A few have started training programs, but some employers say this is more expensive than raising wages.

But, as labor shortages get worse over the next decade, finding more creative solutions may become imperative to economic survival.

With such an incentive, businesses may be forced to get more involved with schools and students, providing role models and incentives to stay in school, something educators and youth agencies have been urging for years. Businesses may be forced to find transportation alternatives for teen-asgers and others who qualify for jobs but lack the means to get to them.

The hurdles are high. But private industry has shown time and again that, when there’s an economic need, there’s usually a way to solve even the most stubborn problems.

In this case, by businesses serving their own needs, the whole community could benefit.