Best Youth Employment Stories Of 2013

Andrew is filling out a job application for a Jamba Juice in Oakland, Calif. He’s making his way through the basics, filling out his name and contact information. However, question five poses a challenge. It’s a yes or no checkbox which reads, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”

Families with lots of cash have safety nets. Nursing homes when elderly relatives get sick. Daycare for young children. But for working class families, young people are often the default safety net.

Three years ago, when Christian Hernandez was 16 years old, he recorded a joke voicemail greeting. It’s meant to trick the caller into thinking it’s Hernandez on the phone. Now, at 19, Hernandez is looking for a job, and the greeting which started off as a joke for friends is now a liability.

An electric wire factory in western Georgia is staffed almost entirely by teenagers. They are there because of a partnership between a local company, Southwire, and the Carroll County school system. They teamed up six years ago to try to reduce the high school dropout rate.

Teenagers are three times more likely to be unemployed in this country than adults. In Castro Valley, California there aren’t that many newspaper routes or lawns to mow.  But Kendrick Calkins was able to land a gig close to home, fixing washers and dryers with his Grandpa.

More than 200 young people from all over the country converged online to talk about youth access to jobs, or the lack thereof.

What’s the path to that dream job? How does one job lead to another? Sal Algaba is a plumber, but he didn’t always know that was what he wanted to do. In fact, it took Algaba years before he found his way into the trade.