Teenagers seeking jobs in Portland and across the country are facing another unwelcoming summer job market. Reduced funding for summer employment programs and increased competition from displaced adult workers have greatly reduced job opportunities for youth.
As noted in our previous article on youth employment, the benefits of summer youth employment includes improved academic success for students that work during the summers, critical job readiness training, and important workforce development for the local economy. Despite the bleak economy, there are plenty of opportunities for local companies and individuals to help connect Portland’s youth with its business community.
How Does A Business Benefit From Hiring A Teenager?
Choosing to recruit teenagers for a job opportunity or creating a student internship is a hands-on way to give back to the community, but there are many direct benefits for the employer as well.
Training a summer intern is an ideal opportunity for staff members to gain supervisory experience. It can also renew a workplace’s commitment to high professional standards because workers will want to pass on good work habits when teaching young people the ropes.
“It challenges them [staff members] to excel in their everyday jobs and think about what they do in a different way,” notes Skai Dancey, Director of Facilities and Transportation at OHSU. Dancey’s department commonly employs young workers and recently hired eight student interns through Portland’s SummerWorks program.
Providing young people exposure to career opportunities allows businesses to make a direct investment in their long-term workforce needs. This exposure is needed more than ever for many careers as other training opportunities dry up.
Summer jobs can also be a direct workforce development pathway. Of the 205 youths placed in summer internship programs by SummerWorks last year, 17 were retained by their employers after the summer program concluded.
Student workers are also a cost-effective temporary staffing solution for businesses. Having a student helper working side-by-side with existing staff can increase productivity at a lower cost than adding a fully trained staff member. In addition, the City of Portland has temporarily sweetened the cash benefit for local companies that hire youth workers by offering a business tax credit.
The $500 tax credit pilot program championed by Mayor Sam Adams is given to businesses that provide career exploration opportunities for local youth. Beyond offering jobs and internships for young people, supporting activities like career days and job shadows may also qualify a business for this tax credit.
Finally, bringing in student workers is an easy way for a business to gain youth marketing insights and knowledge. This is especially valuable for businesses that cater to a younger clientele or want to stay on the cutting edge of pop culture and tastes.
Portland Parks and Recreation is one of the biggest employers of youth during the summer.
“A lot of our programs cater to youth,” says Margaret Evans, the Workforce Development Manager for the parks department. “[Hiring youth workers] provides us with direct knowledge for our programming and what is needed. We all learn from each other.”
Getting Started: Recruiting Youth Workers
Employers can call the office of the high school to connect with the career coordinator or contact PPS’ Career Pathways Program Manager Jeanne Yerkovich at 503.916.5450.
Businesses may contact Reese Lord at 503.478.7340 to learn more about SummerWorks.
If you would like to be part of the BizConnect database, contact Reese Lord at 503.478.7340.
Finding willing youth workers isn’t difficult.
“With federal funding, we filled over 2,000 slots for summer internships [in 2009],” Mayor Adams notes. “This shows clearly that the demand is there.”
As with recruiting any employee, there are many avenues for reaching out to potential youth employees. The choice of outreach method should reflect who you hope to hire.
For the first time, Portland Public Schools (PPS) will have career coordinators at each of its high school campuses this fall. Businesses that hope to hire someone from their neighborhood should consider recruiting at the local high school closest to their location.
If a business hopes to hire from within a particular community, coordinating with a nonprofit connected to that community is an ideal option. Many nonprofits already have recruitment and job training programs designed with job placement in mind. For example, the Native American Youth Family Center (NAYA) provides the youth it serves with basic work skills and job readiness support as part of its mission.
The easiest one-stop shop for a business planning on hiring a youth worker for the summer is SummerWorks, a local public-private partnership. SummerWorks manages recruitment and selection and serves as the employer of record for its interns. All payroll, taxes and insurance are managed by SummerWorks, as well as initial job readiness training for each teenager. Using SummerWorks means less paperwork for the business in exchange for less flexibility in choosing an employee.
In some cases, SummerWorks can even coordinate recruitment from a specific nonprofit program. For instance, Travel Portland wanted to hire youth being served by Outside In and REAP, two local, social services organizations.
“We admire the work these programs do and wanted to support their mission,” states Ron Melton, Travel Portland’s Executive Vice President of Services and Operations, and on the behalf of Travel Portland, SummerWorks was able to recruit directly from those organizations.
A SummerWorks intern will cost a business $2,000, but this will provide an employer with up to 180 hours of work during the six to nine week program.
No Job To Offer? You Can Still Help
You don’t need to provide a job for young people to be part of the solution. Work readiness and career training for youth can be supported in many other ways by business owners and individuals.
Businesses can host site visits by student groups to provide exposure to the work environment and careers in their industry. Business owners and even individual professionals can participate in career days at local schools and nonprofits as well as provide job shadowing opportunities (e.g., bring a student to work day).
And the opportunity for businesses and community members to take part in these other types of career exploration support is getting easier thanks to BizConnect, a regional database that allows businesses and individuals who want to help teens and young adults learn about different careers get connected to local schools.
“A big advantage of the BizConnect system,” PPS’ Career Pathways Program Manager Jeanne Yerkovich says, “is that individual teachers can also find opportunities and make the connection to bring people into the classroom rather than having to rely on coordination from a higher level.”
Other Ways To Support The Job Readiness of Portland’s Youth
Nonprofits that engage in youth training and career exploration can always benefit from financial support from businesses and community members, and these donations are tax-deductible.
And let’s not forget that this is an election year.
On that note, here’s some advice on how to close the summer youth employment gap for Portland’s next mayor from Mayor Adams: “Continue the work, continue the partnerships, and continue to connect all of the mayor’s office strategies—economic development and export strategies should be linked with schools in mind.”
Now is a great time to voice your support for job training for our youth, making it a policy priority for the City of Portland. We can all be part of the solution.
What action will you take to support career development for our youth? Or, do you have other ideas or experiences that will support youth job readiness in Portland?
