Ryan Semenuk rode his bike up and down the streets of his Toronto neighbourhood, stopping at every business he thought might give him a job.
He handed out “tons, tons” of résumés, but the 18-year-old Grade 12 student didn’t get any replies.
“I was really persistent and aggressive and all that, but it just didn’t work out,” he says. “I was riding to every store possible.”
Finally, Mr. Semenuk attended a job fair, where he landed work this summer flipping burgers at Lick’s, a fast-food restaurant. But the competition was tough, he says, as people who appeared much older and more experienced were at the same job fair vying for the opening.
“There’s a lot of people there that … look very intelligent and intimidating, and you’re all sitting in the same room,” he says. “It’s very hard, because you think that the people around are better than you.”
Summer employment has been customary for generations of high-school teens. But these days, because of a lacklustre economy and a preference among employers for more mature and experienced staff, many high-school students are finding themselves displaced by university- and college-aged students in temporary, entry-level retail and hospitality jobs traditionally occupied by younger teens.
While some high-school students are responding by giving up on the job hunt altogether, others are finding alternative ways, such as volunteer work or travel, to enrich their lives and boost their CVs.
“There’s a crisis right now in youth unemployment,” says Nancy Schaefer, president of Toronto-based Youth Employment Services. “Because there’s such a high rate of unemployment for all youth in general, it always trickles down and those who are most affected are those who don’t have skills and experience, so that’s [where] the high-school kids come in.”
Even though the employment rate for young people aged 15 to 24 edged up 3.1 percentage points to 59.2 per cent in May from a year earlier, it’s still well below the 63.6 per cent in 2008 when youth employment was particularly strong, according to Statistics Canada.
Ms. Schaefer warned that joblessness among current high-school students could have significant long-term effects.
“It will seriously impact them,” she says, noting that research has shown “when you experience bouts of unemployment when you’re young, it will affect your long-term career and the amount of money you’re going to make over your lifetime.”
To avoid having to train new workers year after year, employers tend to prefer hiring the same students each summer, says Qazi Hasan, manager of employment services at Toronto’s WoodGreen Community Services.
That means many university- and college-aged students, who aren’t finding higher skilled and more lucrative work, are likely returning to the same summer jobs they held in high school – with a significant advantage over younger students who are only now entering the labour market.
Taylor Quinn, 17, says he isn’t letting the tough job climate hold him back. Instead of working this summer, the Vancouver teen is travelling to Kenya with Toronto-based charities Free the Children and Me to We to help build a school and provide clean water for impoverished children.
“I think it will change my perspective on life,” he says, adding he expects the experience will also enhance his résumé for future job hunting. “When you get a résumé that jumps out at you … and it’s full of amazing things, it makes you go, ‘Wow, I want to meet this person. This person sounds really interesting.’ It really helps separate yourself and gives you that edge.”
To help fund his trip, Mr. Quinn has saved up from the after-school jobs he’s held over the past three years, including ones as a grocery clerk and a basketball referee. But he says not all his peers have the same work ethic.
