Why B.C. students looking for summer jobs face stiff competition

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On a breezy, sunny afternoon this week, Sierra Loewen, Corynn Peters and Grace Cass sorted fresh B.C. strawberries into boxes and tended to customers at Bob’s Fruit Stand, a small business at Delbrook Plaza in North Vancouver.

At a time when some of their peers or siblings are struggling to land summer jobs or get more working hours, the trio — who are all repeat summer employees — are grateful to have full-time jobs they enjoy.

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“I work Monday to Friday and I get off at six and I like the people here,” said Cass, who graduated from UBC Okanagan and will pursue nursing studies at BCIT in the fall. She is working her fifth consecutive summer at the fruit stand.

“Everyone’s always so stressed about getting a job when you get off of school.”

It’s a time-honoured tradition: high school and university students finish classes and then scramble to find temporary summer gigs to make some money and gain work experience, from flipping burgers to leading day camps.

Early on, anecdotal indicators suggest students looking for work this summer may face stiff competition.

Bruce Reid, who runs the fruit stand from June until October, said this month he’s already had a few people coming in looking for work with a resume in hand.

“There does seem to be a bit of competition out there this year,” he said, noting that at a time when searching and applying for jobs is done online, it’s a bit unusual for people to come in with resumes on them.

Ian Tostenson, president of the B.C. Restaurant and Food Services Association, agreed that the volume of summer job applications seems to be growing.

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“We are getting more people applying than in the past few years. Up until about a year ago, we couldn’t get enough people and now there are more people. There are jobs, but you have got to button down and work hard to get them.”

Profit margins are still tight and costs are high, said Tostenson, so employers are looking for staff who are keen and enthusiastic.

“I’ve heard about some interviews where they’re asked, ‘Have you been here before?’ and they say, ‘No.’ You have got to show you have done some research so you can say, ‘I love these appetizers!’”

For many years the federal government has offered employers wage subsidies to create “quality summer work experiences for young people aged 15 to 30 years.” Last year, B.C. employers received more than $30 million under the program and created more than 6,800 jobs, according to a federal website.

However, over at popular East Vancouver ice cream institution Casa Gelato, owner Tina Misceo expressed a bit of frustration with hiring summer students.

“We hire people. Their parents want them to work. But teenagers or young people, they see the sun and they don’’ want to sign up for as many shifts. They often have other summer plans or are taking courses. We go through people for different reasons.”

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She said they have a few long-time summer employees who have come back year after year and who pick up shifts during the year during school breaks.

“Wages have gone up. Prices of everything have increased,” said Misceo. “It’s harder to keep people if they don’t want to work (the entire summer).”

One company currently advertising a part- or full-time summer internship paying $16 to $18 an hour put it this way: “We understand that students do have family vacation time planned over the summer, the recruiting team and managers will discuss time off needs during the recruiting process to determine if that will prevent a barrier to the program.”

Marc-David Seidel, an associate professor at the University of B.C. Sauder School of Business, has researched the benefits of teenagers and young people working part-time and summer jobs when they’re students. He found they’re more likely than their peers who don’t have jobs to later land better prospects and earn more money in their careers.

Asked how summer job prospects look this year and whether the tensions between balancing time for extracurriculars and getting ahead academically versus working to make money and gain experience still exist, he said:

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“Similar tensions still exist in the summer job market, and they are intensified during periods like this when many families are struggling with inflation at the same time that many businesses are facing rising costs as well,” said Seidel.

“So while the underlying dynamic has not changed, individual decisions are coming from different perspectives so the ultimate decisions made both about hiring teenagers and about teenagers deciding to take a summer job may shift a bit with the different (economic) pressures.”

Back at the fruit stand, Loewen, a fine arts student at UBC Okanagan, said she had a brief stint at a large supermarket chain but didn’t like it as much.

“I’ve tried to look for other things. Usually, I can’t find much. People will send out a little ad, saying, ‘We need people.’ And then I send in a resume and then I don’t hear anything — even a callback. It’s kind of tough.”

Loewen adds she finds it a challenge to find work online — plus, “you don’t know behind the scenes … if it’s a legitimate business or if it’s a scam” — and prefers applying for jobs that have physical spaces or at least a website.

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She said she knew about the fruit stand because her parents would always get produce from it.

“I always feel it’s going to be better putting your face to them,” she said.

jlee-young@postmedia.com

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