Not too late, but finding summer employment will be full-time job

With teenagers in their final days of school before summer break, some of those with aspirations to work over the summer have already secured employment. However, for the many still hoping to land a position, one job-search authority says it is not too late.

While many employers already completed the process of interviewing and hiring for seasonal positions, this does not mean that those still wanting jobs should give up. Some employers may need more workers than they expected, others may have delayed hiring and some may have discovered that one or more of those hired early were not a good fit.

The point is you never know if, or when, a job opening is going to materialize, so you want to keep pushing to ensure that you are in the right place if one does.

The outlook on the summer job market for teenagers released by Challenger, Gray & Christmas in March was not very optimistic. However, since March, large seasonal hiring plans were announced by several employers, including McDonald's, The Home Depot and Lowe's.

Teen job seekers will definitely need help from the private sector. We still see a shortage of job opportunities for teens in the cash-strapped public sector, where taxpayer-funded park districts, public swimming pools, beaches and camps are likely to cut back on seasonal hiring.

Last year, teen job seekers experienced the weakest summer job market in decades. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that from May through July employment among 16- to 19-year-olds increased by just 960,000 jobs. That was down 17.5 percent from 2009, when teen employment grew by 1,163,000.

The 960,000 summer jobs filled by teens represent the lowest level of summer hiring since 1949, when teen employment increased by 932,000 during the summer months. In contrast, employers hired more than 1.7 million teenagers during the summer of 2006, bringing total employment for this age group to 7,494,000 in July, which historically represents the annual peak of teen employment.

The key to success for late-to-the-game teen job seekers will be an aggressive approach. Today's tech-savvy teenagers are apt to conduct 90 percent of their job search on the Internet and submit applications online. However, nothing beats actually walking into a business, introducing yourself to the manager and asking about job opportunities.

John A. Challenger is chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., the global outplacement consultancy that pioneered outplacement as an employer-paid benefit in the 1960s. Challenger is a recognized thought leader on workplace, labor and economic issues.