Students, laid-off workers compete for jobs

Young people will find fierce competition for a shrinking pool of traditional summer jobs this year from the swelling ranks of laid-off workers.

“Teens are competing not only with other members of their age group, but also with older, more experienced job seekers willing to accept positions for which they are most likely overqualified,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

High schoolers are also competing with college students who are lowering their job expectations.

“I’ve sent out a lot of applications and haven’t really gotten any responses,” said Dominique Escalera, a 17-year-old student at Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield.

“All the jobs are taken already and college kids are taking them, too,” she said, speaking with friends Wednesday at Malek’s Pizza Palace in Springfield.

The same economic conditions driving more people into the seasonal workplace are slashing the number of summer jobs available.

Since last fall, the economy has lost jobs at a rate of 600,000 per month, according to Labor Department statistics.

“It is possible that for the first time since 1954, fewer than [1 million] 16- to 19-year-olds will find summer jobs,” Challenger, Gray & Christmas said. In 2007, there were 1.6 million such jobs. Last year, there were 1.2 million, according to the firm.

Austin Hall, 18, a senior on the track team at West Springfield High School, is attending Hampton University in Hampton, Va., next fall on an academic scholarship. He expects to enroll in a five-year MBA program.

For now, he may feel lucky if he gets one of the two part-time cashier’s jobs open at Malek’s, where he turned in an application after seeing the restaurant’s help-wanted sign.

Even though he is off to an early start, his job search “has been a long one,” Mr. Hall said. He has submitted many applications but has gotten no responses.

“I know the jobs are going to be gone by the time the summer starts because everybody’s going to be looking. I’m trying to get a head start,” he said.

The tight job market has made life a little easier for Jonathan Malekzadeh, owner of Malek’s Pizza Palace. “We put an ad on Craigslist, and we had such an unbelievable amount of responses, probably about 100,” he said.

“A lot of college students, like students from William and Mary, have already e-mailed me saying they are ready to work when they get back, which is pretty early,” he said.

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