by Sandra Hong
NARR
Christopher Brown thinks it should be pretty easy for him to find a job. He's 19, and has experience working as an ice cream scooper, camp counselor and most recently, a maintenance worker. His job hunt is barely a week old, and Brown is already worried about the word on the street. A majority of his friends can't find work, he says. Brown blames it on competition.
TAPE: Brown
If you ain't got the quailifications, the skills necessary for the job, they dont wanna hire you. Specially if they know they could find somebody better. Cuzfor every job that you applying for, there's about 50 to 100 people applying for the same job and at least 20 of them are going to be more qualified than you. So you might as well cut out right there.
NARR
Still, Brown is hopeful and believes there is a job out there for him. But one economist isn't as optimistic. Andrew Sum of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston recently conducted a study showing young people were disproportionately affected by the job market decline over the past several years. He says out of the 2.5 million people who lost jobs between 2000 and 2002, nearly 1 million of them were under 24.
TAPE: Sum
The employment rate of teenagers nationwide, last year, is the lowest it's been since the federal government's been collecting this data, taking you back to 1948. So the magnitude of it is historically unprecedented.
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About 36 percent of teens had jobs last year. Sum says it looks like that number could drop even lower this summer based on the latest employment data.
TAPE:
We find in first three months of this year teens are less likely to be employed than in the first three months of last year, which indicates we may be on track to another record low employment among teens.
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Sum says fewer young people working means less productivity, less income and less spending .... Spending that could help create jobs for adults. But teen unemployment has other consequences as well, Sum says.
TAPE:
there's also evidence particularly for lower income and disadvantaged youth that those youth who worked through high school are less likely to drop out of school than their peers who do not work at all.
NARR
Jobs for Youth is a GED and work-training program that tries to place up to 40 students in jobs and internships every year. Imani Parker is the director of that program and also helping to raise money for the city's summer jobs program for teenagers. She says jobs demand from teens certain skills that can sometimes be pushed aside in the classroom.
TAPE: Parker
...Being responsible. And I think that's the most important skill you can have to be successful in any job. Summer jobs give them a sense of responsibility, a sense of independence. It empowers them.
NARR
Not only that, but Parker adds young people who are productive are less inclined to get in trouble.
15-year-old Angie Charles is hoping to get a job for the summer ... one that pays. So far, her work experience has been restricted to volunteering.
TAPE:
I've been a program assistance, junior counselor, teachers aide, and an office intern, all before the age of 15. Cuz I've been building up my resume since I was 13 years old, and that's the only thing I can do.
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Charles says she hopes to get a job through the city's Summer Youth Employment program. Last summer the program helped about 36,000 city teenagers find work. In a tight job market, Charles says, the program is the only way for teens like her to get a foot in the door to employment.
For Columbia Radio News, I'm Sandra Hong