🚀 Gen Z Takes Charge: The Summer of Soaring Teenage Employment and Pay 💸
TL;DR;
🍦🎡🌭 Gen Z is taking the summer job market by storm and they are not just asking for peanuts. Thanks to a labor market tighter than a pair of skinny jeans, teens are bagging better jobs at higher wages. Are you ready for the Summer of Teen Power? 😎💪💰
Move over, boomers and millennials! Gen Z is taking the reins and turning the job market on its head. One such go-getter, Billy Rutherford, has been making waves (and cash) at Morey’s Piers amusement park in Wildwood, New Jersey, where he serves as a game operator. 🎯🕹️ A change in law last year now allows Billy and his fellow 16- and 17-year-old compadres to work up to 50 hours a week during the summer. More hours? More money! Right, Billy? 🕰️💸
But let’s take a step back here. Isn’t working 50 hours a week a lot for a teenager?🤔
Sure, teens have always been the backbone of summer staff at restaurants, ice cream stands, and camps. But with the current labor market being tighter than a new pair of Vans, they’re not just earning an extra buck – they’re earning the BIG bucks. 🏦
Take Funtown Splashtown USA, a funfair in southern Maine, for example. The teens there are not just employees, they’re life savers. The park is struggling to find enough staff to keep their doors open seven days a week. But the teens, they’re stepping up to the plate! The amusement park is expecting to hire about 350 workers this summer, many of them local high schoolers. 💪🎡
But here’s a question for you, dear reader: Is putting more pressure on kids the right way to address labor shortages? 🤔
At RideAway Adventures on Cape Cod, finding enough teen workers hasn’t been a problem. Is it because they offer outdoor and active work rather than dish washing? Maybe it’s their willingness to up the pay for hard workers by as much as 50 cents an hour. We’re not talking chump change here! 💵💰
And get this – teens are getting pickier! Maxen Lucas, a graduating senior at Lincoln Academy in Maine, claims young workers can be choosier now. Could it be because they’re getting paid more? 💼🔍
Hourly pay jumped about 5% in April from a year ago at restaurants, retailers, and amusement parks – industries that are most likely to hire teens. Before the pandemic, pay in these industries typically rose no more than 3% annually. 📈💸
Just ask Addison Beer, 17, who will be working at the Virginia G. Piper branch of the Boys & Girls Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, this summer. She temporarily took a job at a restaurant desperate for workers. “They just asked me a few questions and were like, ‘Oh, you’re hired!’” she said. 🍽️🎉
But for many teens, it’s not all about the Benjamins. Christopher Au, 19, who has been dishing out ice cream at a J.P. Licks in Boston for the past few months, is all about gaining independence. Not a bad attitude, eh? 🍦👏
Jack Gervais, 18, lined up an internship shooting photography at an arts venue and will earn roughly the minimum wage of
