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Hofstra University Hosts Conference on Young People's Job Outlook

Posted on: Friday, 16 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

Sep. 16--A number of youth employment experts gathered yesterday and today at Hofstra University to speak at a two-day conference. But Gregory DeFreitas, the economics professor who organized the event, says he'll be encouraging commentary from the real experts -- the students and other young people also attending.

Scholars, union representatives, employers, worker rights advocates are likely to hear scenarios along the lines of this one from Meghan Attreed, 20, a senior at Hofstra. To help defray expenses, she schedules the following jobs each week around her 18 credit hours of classes; 10-12 hours in the university relations office; 8-10 hours at the school's radio station; 10-15 hours at a greeting card store in a Westbury mall.

On Fridays, she drives to her home in Connecticut for about 30 hours of weekend work in the catering department of an amusement park, which reimburses her gas mileage. When that ends later this month, she'll stick around Long Island to do waitressing.

"It would be nice to have one or maybe two jobs," she says. But it's hard to find "fit-around" jobs that work with her class schedule, as well as jobs that are more on a par salarywise with those in Connecticut, where the minimum wage is $7.10 an hour, compared with $6 in New York.

With tuition costs rising and families strapped by stagnant wages, job loss and increased health care and gas costs, more young people are looking to cobble jobs together, DeFreitas says.

One challenge is competition for those low-wage entry-level jobs from newcomers to the U.S., as well as from retirees looking to supplement pensions or Social Security. Indeed, teen employment -- 36.7 percent this summer -- is at its lowest since 1948, when researchers started gathering that data, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

"The pieces fit together into a worrisome pattern," DeFreitas says, one that is being addressed at the conference -- Youth Employment in the Global Economy. Subjects include health and safety issues, school-to-work transitions, trends and responses in other countries, labor unions, student workplace activism. (See www.hofstra.edu/culture.)

Cheryl Davidson was scheduled to speak yesterday on employers' needs. She's executive director of the Long Island Works Coalition, which links business people and educators. Human resource managers say they do have entry-level openings, she says, but complain they can't find young people to fill them. So her group is planning a career fair next month to help high school students learn about jobs with East End maritime businesses.

Also on the conference roster was Yasemin Besen, an assistant sociology professor at Montclair (N.J.) State University, who sees competition for jobs among young people themselves.

The number of affluent teens who are working has increased steadily during the past two decades, with a slight dip the past two years, she says. They work not as much for the income as for the pleasure of being active and meeting new friends. But, she says, that means fewer job opportunities for lower-income kids.

Indeed, Attreed, who enjoys the variety of her part-time jobs, says that, sure, she works for the money, but she's also used to being busy. In her freshman year, she said, she found herself with free time, and "a natural filler of time is to get a job."

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Source: Newsday, Melville, N.Y.

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