For the graying Baby Boom parent, it looms as the No. 1 challenge of the
`90s: juggling four cars among an equal number of family members, who hold down six or more jobs.
Exaggeration? Hardly. Many mature adults already hold down more than one form of employment. Increasingly, the trend is expanding to include their offspring, especially those in their late teens or older.
With employers scouring the landscape for workers who can add and subtract, will show up, and do a respectable job for $5 an hour or less, the teens find themselves in great demand.
The reasons are many, but they boil down to this: There are 3 million fewer teenagers in the work force now than there were 10 years ago. And because many employers become accustomed to filling certain jobs with young workers, teens find plenty of openings available.
Since 1980, the number of 16- to 24-year-olds, traditionally the primary pool of new hiring for relatively unskilled jobs, has declined sharply.
As recently as 1980, this age group included 37.2 million men and women potentially available for civilian jobs. However, by 1996, when that number hits its low point, there will be only 30 million.
That means demand for young workers is nearly limitless, with no signs of any cooling soon.
”The job market for teens will remain hot throughout the `90s,” said Evelina Tainer, an economist with First National Bank of Chicago who follows local employment trends.
”The service sector is the No. 1 engine for job growth in the economy, and service jobs attract a lot of teenagers,” Tainer said.
It is not uncommon for a high school junior or senior to quit a job one afternoon and have another position lined up the next day. There are abundant openings available flipping burgers, standing behind a cash register, washing cars, picking up trash, mowing grass, taking orders for cakes, clearing snow- the list goes on. Just about all the positions are part-time.
For parents and their offspring, though, the key element is transportation. Who gets the keys, and how many cars can a family afford? And how do you lay hands on enough jumper cables to keep the burgeoning fleet of old vehicles running when temperatures dip below zero?
With luck, the situation won`t find everyone screaming continually. But something has to give-or someone give in-and usually it is the parents, in their quest to provide still more wheels to send their offspring to a never-ending succession of appointments for work.
The pressures created by this employment merry-go-round are no laughing matter. In some cases, it is driving parents, or their offspring, into the arms, or onto the couches, of psychiatric counselors.
According to a recent issue of Psychiatric News, the number of mental health hospitalizations involving those under age 18 rose by nearly 50 percent from 1980 to 1986, from 82,000 to 112,000.
Fueling family conflicts are teens who hold down two or more jobs apiece. To speak from experience as a suburban head of family, it has not been uncommon under our household`s roof for Dad to take the train to the city, Mom to drive off for her consulting job at a nursing home 35 miles distant, Daughter to motor toward the high school before finishing her day with jobs baby-sitting and at a bakery, and Son to seek yet another vehicle to carry him to jobs at a local park district and at a repair shop that overhauls engines- all in a single day.
The result: a thriving small business in finding, financing and repairing aging cars, all an effort to keep them running and safe. No mean accomplishment.
Among neighbors, teens wheedle cars, mini-vans or pickups to lug them to jobs as landscaper, liquor store worker, security guard, pizza maker, busboy, inventory clerk and floral arranger.
Economist Tainer said the lack of cars-or some form of mobility-serves as the primary deterrent for minority teens to land jobs.
”Unless they can get to service sector jobs, they are shut out,” she said.
Tainer cited several small businesses near the O`Hare rapid transit line on the Northwest Side that have hired minority workers from the West Side.
”Where there is good public transportation, young minority workers are able to take advantage of job openings. There are help-wanted signs everywhere,” Tainer said.
Service-sector firms have been forced to hire some retirees, she said, but the elderly really aren`t competing with teen-agers for jobs.
”Companies are turning to older workers simply because there aren`t enough teens to go around,” she said.
It is all part of a job boom for those who work for minimum wage, or a shade more. It is not uncommon for the teens to pull down $4.50 an hour, and a few jobs bring in $6 or $8. More commonly, the scale is near the lower end.
Some analysts believe upcoming changes in the minimum wage will work to the detriment of teens, as employers cut down on entry-level positions.
Economist Samuel Kahan, however, is unsure there will be much immediate effect.
”Don`t forget, there will be a training wage that will be lower than the minimum wage,” said Kahan, chief financial economist for Kleinwort Benson Government Securities Inc. of Chicago.
From $3.35 an hour, the minimum wage will go to $3.80 in April. The following April, it will go up to $4.25.
However, the training wage, or ”subminimum wage,” will be $3.35 the first year of the new law, and employers will be able to pay at that level for up to six months. Many teen workers don`t stay in a job that long.
The second year of the new law, the training wage will rise to $3.61.
Kahan thinks the effect of the law could be to encourage turnover among new workers. But for most teens, that would simply be a continuation of a situation that already occurs. And for parents, it would simply mean scouting around for more old cars.
