Editorial

The Importance of Summer Jobs

It is mid-May. The last of the area college commencement ceremonies are taking place, and the region’s high schools will be saluting the classes of 2011 in a few weeks. Classes are long over for a few thousand area college undergraduates, and all those high schools will soon be shutting things down for the summer.
Add all this up, and there are a great many young people across the four counties of Western Mass. who are already looking for work or soon will be. It is our hope that, despite a still sluggish economy, many of them will be able to find it.
We have long touted the importance of summer jobs to the overall economic health and vitality of the region, and in this day and age, they are perhaps more critical than ever, and for a number of reasons.
Most importantly, there will likely be more people looking for such positions, primarily because there are fewer permanent jobs for several constituencies, especially those college graduates. And there is also a need — perhaps greater than ever — to introduce young people to this region’s business community and the world of work.
For these reasons and many others, we hope that area businesses, through their own initiative or in concert with organizations like the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, find the means, the courage, the confidence, or whatever you choose to call it to add a body or two for the summer months. No, the economy isn’t as strong as most would like it be or thought it would be by this time, but bringing on summer help is important to this region’s overall vitality.
Why? For starters, first jobs, or second jobs, as the case may be, do more than put a few dollars in someone’s pocket — although that is an important consideration as well. These jobs can and often do build character and provide lessons that simply can’t be learned in a classroom.
No matter how old one is, he or she almost always remembers their first job, their first boss, and lessons learned about being punctual, showing up on time because other people are depending on them, working as part of a team, and absorbing information about work and life from people who are a few years or several decades older.
Such experiences are priceless, and very often, they are quite enjoyable, whether they come at Six Flags (or Riverside Park, to the thousands of Baby Boom-generation members who worked there) operating a ride or a midway game, at Big Y bagging groceries, at Friendly’s making Jim Dandies and Fribbles, at Rocky’s Hardware loading bags of crabgrass killer into customers’ trunks, or at countless other area companies.
And while summer jobs are important for the young people who get them, they are equally important for the individual businesses that hire them and the region as a whole. That’s because one of the ways to keep young talent in the area is to introduce them to the companies that shape our business community. Meanwhile, it is critical that young individuals acquire the practical skills and people skills they will need to succeed in the modern workplace.
And there’s another important factor at play here. When young people are working and earning a paycheck, they are far less likely to be out on the streets and getting into trouble.
It would be very easy for companies large and small to say that there is just too much uncertainty with the economy to hire any additional help for the summer. It would also be easy for smaller ventures to say that just don’t have the time, patience, or inclination to bring on young people in need of training and direct supervision.
We hope such businesses look beyond what’s easy and do what in most cases is right for them and right for the region, and give a young person — or two, or three — a summer job.