This summer, the Spitzler Report is offering three prize internships at our company swimming complex. Applications will be judged solely on communications skills, math ability, and a critical thinking exam.
Shown below, Spritzler 2022 Intern Fransis Kabir, who now identifies as Frank.
This Summer, Lifeguards Have Better Job Prospects Than Office Interns
Employers turn to young workers and raise wages to fill openings
By Oyin Adedoyin and Sarah Chaney Cambon, WSJ
June 10, 2023 9:00 am ET
Swim instructors, ice-cream scoopers and camp counselors are among this summer’s most sought-after workers. Office interns? Not so much.
Americans are spending freely on summer travel, dining out and day camps, resulting in an abundance of better-paying jobs for teens in a surprisingly robust U.S. labor market. Postings on Indeed.com for summer jobs remain well above prepandemic levels, though not quite as high as last year, when worker shortages caused restaurants, pools and camps to reduce hours.
Workers in search of internships might not fare as well. Job postings on Indeed.com for summer internships are down more year-over-year than ads for other summer jobs as many white-collar companies slow hiring or cut jobs.
Many summer jobs are available in fast-growing leisure and hospitality businesses, which often hire entry-level workers without college degrees. Restaurants, summer camps and similar businesses are broadly still trying to staff up to prepandemic employment levels, creating job opportunities for teens, including Kylie Castello.
Castello, a 17-year-old in San Jose, Calif., is working for the second summer as a swim instructor where she leads one-on-one sessions, mainly with elementary schoolers. She teaches them swim strokes and how to tread water, and adds rubber ducks and floating rings into the pool for a splash of fun.
She wasn’t looking for work until her former swim coach came calling last summer. “They really wanted more swim instructors, so it was fairly easy for me to find a job,” she said.
Castello is making $20 an hour, up from $16 last summer. She said the extra money will help her save up for college in the fall.
With plentiful jobs, wages are rising
Employers reported 10.1 million job openings in April, far exceeding the 5.7 million unemployed job seekers. About 20% of those were in fields such as entertainment, food service and retail.
“We have a widespread labor shortage in the American economy and that’s pushing up wages, especially teen wages,” said Paul Harrington, an economist at Rhode Island College. “That’s going to bring kids into the job market.”
Harrington predicts the highest share of teens will hold jobs this summer than any other since 2008.
Teens also are benefiting from less competition. The pandemic drove many older workers—who might otherwise pursue the same part-time jobs teens take—out of the labor market, Harrington said.
Wages are rising briskly for summer positions, though they tend to be in lower-paying fields. Workers at restaurants, hotels, fitness centers and summer camps all saw faster wage increases in April from a year earlier than all private-sector workers.
Nandhini Natarajan, 18, is making $14 an hour plus tips this summer preparing Italian ice at a Rita’s shop in Hunt Valley, Md. Her pay is well above the $10.75 plus tips she made when she first started the seasonal job three years ago.
“I was debating on getting another job this year to help me save a little more money, but my raise at Rita’s allowed me to just work one job and enjoy my summer,” she said.
Share of teens working is low
For some summer positions, there still aren’t enough workers. Lifeguard shortages, in particular, are lingering this summer and preventing some pools and beaches from opening.
Seattle Parks and Recreation said that four pools and three beaches would remain closed until the department could reach sufficient staffing levels. For lifeguards, the city is dangling starting wages of $21.05 an hour.
About 37% of teens are working or seeking a job, up from a prepandemic low of about 33% in 2014. Still, far fewer teens are looking for work than in 1978, when that share hit a high of 59.3%.
Economists point to several reasons fewer teens are seeking jobs compared with prior generations, including a shift in teen priorities. Summer courses, unpaid internships and extracurricular activities replaced time available to bag groceries, wash cars and wait tables.
Summer internships are harder to get
Summer employment is broadly following a wider job market trend. Lower-wage, service-providing jobs are growing quickly while hiring has slowed in the past year for tech, finance and other business jobs.
Job postings for summer internships were down 14.7% on May 19 from a year earlier, according to Indeed.com. The decline in those jobs, typically held by students pursuing professional careers, was steeper than the drop for traditional summer jobs in hospitality and retail. Nonetheless, internship postings remain above prepandemic levels.
Maggie Walker, 21, said she was surprised when she wasn’t accepted for any of the over 30 summer internships she applied for this year. The bioengineering major at the University of Pittsburgh mainly applied for internships at tech companies, many of which announced layoffs.
“If they’re not hiring real positions, they’re really not hiring summer interns,” Walker said. “It was really disheartening and I definitely had some moments of being like, ‘Is it me? Am I just not qualified? Am I doing something wrong?’”
Walker eventually pieced together a few paid summer jobs. She is working part time at a research lab, 10 hours a week at her school’s engineering advisory office and another 10 hours a week at a Pittsburgh startup.
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