As you may know, the economy is INCREDIBLY unstable right now with tariffs implemented and wars raging. Countries like China are in a real estate crisis, “The crisis that is brewing in China is more severe than the one Japan faced,” says Yu Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the matter from Project Syndicate. This means businesses are running out of money to spend on extra hiring. Combine that with the increase of adults being laid off due to Trump deeming it “necessary” for budgeting, now you have adults with decades of experience competing in the same limited job pool as young teens like you and I. “The Administration reportedly plans additional RIFs with a goal of eliminating another 150,000 positions, on top of the 130,000 employees who have already been laid off or taken buyouts,” this quote being from the cbpp (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)
Adults don’t have a 7 hour school schedule on top of a job. Now the question is, if you were an employer, are you more likely to hire someone who will work any hours, or the hundreds of applicants who can only work past 2 pm at best? Pretty easy question if put simply like that. Adults just have a far more flexible schedule than teenagers do, and even despite this, I personally have walked into a job search center, and have overheard a woman trying to get help finding a job. She explained to me she had a bachelors and associate degree, saying it had been months of rejection. If these people who have gone through college, then jobs, got laid off, and now can’t even find an entry level job, I find it extremely unrealistic to expect teenagers to be able to find a job easily.
However, from what you and I have seen, it’s very clearly not impossible. You know someone in school with a job, but you know 20x as many people who DON’T have one. At this point it’s about luck combined with connections. I’ve found that if you don’t know someone who’s hiring or have a friend in a job with open spots, it’s much harder. If you don’t get lucky with applying right as a job is listed, then get selected for the first (maybe only) round of hiring, then you’ll find it extremely difficult to find a place that will even give you an interview.
While it might be difficult with current events in the economy, I don’t think any of us should truly give up on searching, because then we give in to our circumstances, when what we need to be doing is facing them. To reiterate, I don’t believe it is any regular person’s fault if they can’t get hired. I also wouldn’t necessarily blame anyone for giving up, or much less, losing hope. But at the end of the day, all we can do as people, and all we have done as people throughout history, is continue moving forward.
