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Summer job seekers face tight market

By Levi J. Long
Seattle Times staff reporter

DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES Faisal Anjum and his wife, Seema, stop by the Comcast booth at a job fair at Safeco Field to see what recruiters there had to say yesterday. The fair attracted 2,000 job seekers.

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"I've been looking for the past two months," said Long, 17, a sophomore at the Secondary Academy for Success, an alternative high school in Bothell.

"And so far? Nothing."

Long and 2,000 other job seekers were at a job fair at Safeco Field yesterday in Seattle. Another job fair attracted more than 500 people at the Kenworth Truck plant in Renton for manufacturing jobs with Paccar. With the local unemployment rate at 6 percent, the high turnout was expected, but it wasn't as large as during the worst of the recession.

"At the height of the recession (in 2002), we had over 3,000 people show up during the fairs," said Ken Peterson, general sales manager of Today's Careers, which sponsored the Safeco Field event.

	DEAN RUTZ / THE SEATTLE TIMES Marcus Reese, left, and Carolyn Kennedy with the Seattle Jobs Initiative discuss opportunities with job-fair attendees, including Cortney Randle, right, who is seeking work as a welder.

"With the economy the way it is, it's hard for kids to get jobs," said Sandy Fredric, the careers and technology education teacher at the academy and Long's teacher. Fredric took a class of 15 students to the job fair to look for jobs and to practice networking skills.

A recently released report from an economist says the summer-jobs forecast for teens is bleak. As with other teenagers around the country, Long's chances of finding a job seem slim.

The analysis, conducted by Andrew Sum, an economist at Northeastern University, says only 42 out of every 100 teenagers between 16 and 19 can expect to find a job this summer. The Center for Labor Market Studies in Illinois is projecting an even more dismal figure — that just 37 percent of teens this summer will find jobs.

Long has been looking for a part-time job at grocery stores, warehouses, restaurants. "I'll take any position," Long said. "I'm just hoping to find a job that pays OK."

"It used to be that students would go to the fast-food places or with retail," Fredric said. "But now they can't even find those jobs."

Rony Puwarna, 20, graduated from Seattle University last winter with a degree in business administration. Since December, he's applied to more than 50 U.S. companies.

Puwarna is from Indonesia, and his visa will expire in April. If he doesn't find a job, he'll have to leave the country.

"It's been tough. Finding a job is very competitive. But if I have to leave... ," Puwarna said while shrugging.

Most of the 24 companies at the expo were hiring for sales, company representative positions and service technicians.

"We've had a mix of people, a good balance between ages," said Brooke Korkos, staffing manager and recruiter for Comcast. Most of the 40 openings were at the cable company's call center in Everett.

"You also get free cable if you're hired," Korkos told one attendee.

Christopher Hamilton, 20, who was discharged from the Army in February as an ammunition specialist, wants to re-enlist after going a few months without a job.

"I wasn't sure at first. I had to weigh my options," Hamilton said.

So far he's applied with warehouses and for retail sales but hasn't gotten an interview.

"I liked being an ammo specialist, but the recruiters told me they had an overflow of ammo specialists already," Hamilton said.

At another job fair, in Renton, more than 500 people were seeking jobs with the Kenworth Trucking Co., a division of Paccar.

"It was a long line ... people were lined up around the building," said Dave Camandona, 47, who showed up early yesterday morning.

Camandona was applying for one of 150 positions, including assemblers, painters, forklift drivers, maintenance mechanics and electricians with pay that ranges between $11 and $24 an hour.

Camandona was laid off a year and a half ago from Boeing after 14 years with the company as an assembly mechanic.

"I don't feel enthusiastic about getting (the job)," he said. "They said 'We'll give you a call,' but they all say that."

Dave Mecklenburg, of Work Source, which handled the job fair for Kenworth, said this feeling is common among discouraged job-seekers.

"It's common to feel frustration," he said. Mecklenburg said some people at job fairs can become discouraged after seeing hundreds of people in line for a job.

"It isn't a bad idea to come toward the end of the day, because people can get processed a lot faster then," he said.

Levi J. Long: 206-464-2061 or levilong@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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