Plenty of Jobs for Teens, Like Wrangling an Alpaca, If They Want Them, Report Finds

School is out in many parts of the country, leading to what has been one of the rites of passage for teens — the summer job. And there is good news for the seasonal job seeker, according to a report from Chicago-based CareerBuilder. Some 41% of employers plan to hire workers for the summer, a jump from 29% the previous year.

The report’s findings come at a time of steadily rising employment in the United States as the economy gradually recovers from the recession. The May jobless for 16- to 19-year-olds was 14.3%, a significant drop from the 18.5% jobless post in July 2009, the highest July rate on record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The larger employers appear to be doing more of the hiring, according to CareerBuilder. Of companies with more than 500 employees, 45% plan to hire this summer, compared with 31% last year. And 37% of employers with 250 employees or more plan to hire, as opposed to 27% a year ago.

Some 79% of employers hiring for the summer will pay their summer hires or interns $10 or more an hour on average, up from 74% in 2016, while 19% of employers plan to pay $20 or more per hour.

[nativounit]

The national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

The report indicated that 48% of hospitality companies and 34% of retail employers say they will hire this summer. Other sectors that will be hiring include engineering, information technology, customer service and office support.

And if you’re looking for something completely different, CareerBuilder says there are openings for those who want to wrangle alpacas, tag turtles on a Florida beach, get bitten by mosquitoes for pay, set headstones onto grave sites and deliver telegrams dressed as Groucho Marx.

Employers may discover that finding teens to fill jobs will be a challenge. Fewer young people are working in the summer because parents are pressing kids to sign up for extracurricular activities and do volunteer work to try and improve their chances of getting into the college of their choice. Along those lines, more young people are also eschewing the summer job to take enrichment courses and classes for college credit.

The national survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder between February 16 and March 9, 2017, and included representative samples of 2,587 full-time employers.

[wallst_email_signup]