Janay Hubbard has pretty much peppered the Denver area with resumes and called every mall store and fast- food joint from here to Pikes Peak looking for work.
Nothing.
“Everybody says they’re not hiring,” said the 17-year-old, whose graduation from East High School is a week away.
Hubbard plans to take classes at Metropolitan State College in the fall and, if she can’t find a job this summer, to ask her mom to pay for the clothes, meals out and makeup she absolutely has to have.
She has no plans to become an economist. And she doesn’t have to get a degree in the subject to understand the forecasters who say the tough job market threatens to squelch the summer ambitions of many teenagers from coast to coast.
“The youth-labor market has really collapsed in the last seven, eight years,” said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor and Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
In this stumbling economy, it’s not likely to get better this year, said Sum, who specializes in researching the youth-labor market. In fact, he said, “given the steep decline in employment elsewhere, we estimate that this summer will mark a new all-time low” in teen employment.
That is bad news for Courtney Karst, a senior at Eaglecrest High in Aurora. Karst has applied at American Eagle and Bath & Body Works stores — with no luck.
As they strolled through Southlands shopping center in Aurora on a recent Friday, Karst and friends Jordan Pete, an Eaglecrest junior, Smoky Hill High sophomore Lindsay Hinton and Grandview High sophomore Kelley Williams all said their job searches have been fruitless.
“They all say they’ll call,” Williams said.
But so far, none has.
Without paychecks of their own this summer, the four said they would have to depend on the generosity of parents if they plan to buy anything at Southlands during the summer.
That’s bad news for the economy in general. Unlike previous economic downturns, signs are that teens may cut their spending this time around.
Abercrombie & Fitch sales dropped 10 percent in March, according to the company’s recent figures. American Eagle Outfitters, where the low-cut jeans tend to be less expensive, saw sales drop 5 percent for the five weeks that ended April 5.
Even Apple is predicting a drop in iPod sales in upcoming quarters.
Nationwide, Sum estimates that the unemployment rate among the 18-and-younger crowd is about 17 percent to 18 percent. But he believes that number is low.
“When jobs are not available,” he said, “they quit looking for work. And once they stop looking, they don’t get counted.”
Sum prefers to count the number of teens who are working. And in Denver, that number was about 35 percent in 2006, he said, which was down about 7 percent from the previous year.
But Denver may be doing better than the country as a whole. Elsewhere, teen employment was down 10 percent in 2006, he said.
Hubbard’s search notwithstanding, there are other signs that the outlook for job-hunting teens isn’t as dire here.
The number of employers who signed up to participate in this year’s Governor’s Summer Job Hunt is up compared with last year, said Derek Woodbury, spokesman for the Denver Office of Economic Development.
However, Woodbury said he didn’t have exact numbers since the counting mechanism has changed.
The program — for teens who are economically or otherwise disadvantaged — has also attracted more interest from kids this year, Woodbury said.
From where Jeremy Van Buren sits, there’s no shortage of jobs for kids; there’s a shortage of kids looking for jobs.
Van Buren, manager of the Spicy Pickle sub shop at East Eighth Avenue and Lincoln Street, offers a “great summer job” at his restaurant, where anyone with a driver’s license can earn $7.50 an hour plus tips.
After three days, an ad for the job generated exactly one application, Van Buren said.
He’s surprised, he said: “Usually, I get 20 the first day.”
Karen Auge: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com
