Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Employment opportunities

Something has been bothering me lately about jobs for teens. It is sort of related to the illegal alien problem and the whole idea that good help is hard to find.

Two of my kids have had jobs at the mall. Retail sucks according to most people. But aside from dealing with picky customers, there is a bigger issue.

Someone decided that the company owns these kids. You get scheduled for six hours a week and you are supposed to be “on call” for 20. That would be OK if they called you in for 16 of those hours but most of the time you go a week or two without being called in to work at all.

Whatever happened to the days when part timers had a schedule? You know, 4-9 on Monday and Friday plus Saturday 8-5. And everyone could count on it.

This “on call” or “available” scheduling isn’t a job at all.

So if stores can string along a bunch of teens with the idea that they will call you if they get busy, I don’t really buy the idea that they have to hire illegals because people don’t want to work.

If they would get their act together and create job schedules that allow teens to earn some money on a reliable basis, just maybe the teens would rise to the occasion. D’ya think?

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