Teen who found job at T.J. Maxx knows too many others who can’t find work

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Updated: February 27, 2012 9:48AM

Jason Banderas, a 17-year old student at Antonia Pantoja High School, considers himself lucky. Last summer, after applying at six other places, he landed a job at a T.J. Maxx store.

Jason got the five-week summer job through a placement program at his school. He worked the aisles at the store, stocking merchandise and, as he put it, “making sure everything was in the right place.”

But many of his friends, he told me, were not fortunate enough to get jobs.

Teen employment continues to decline in Illinois, dropping to 27.5 percent in 2011, the lowest rate in 42 years, according to a report released in Boston Tuesday by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Studies. One author of the report called the news “staggeringly bad.”

In 2010, only 18.7 percent of Latino teens from families with incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 were employed. Among African-American teens, only one in 10 from families in that income bracket were emloyed.

White teens from families with incomes of $60,000 to $80,000 were more likely to have a job, with 37.7 percent of them employed in 2010.

These bleak figures point to the danger of losing a generation due to the prolonged downturn in the economy. Teens are competing with adults for whatever jobs they can find.

As Jason says he learned when he was out looking: “Companies want people with experience.”

How then is a new generation of American workers supposed to get that vital early job — the kind of gig that teaches the most basic work habits?

I was 15 when I got my first summer job. I worked as a messenger for an accounting firm in Mexico City. I delivered documents and did all sorts of errands. I learned about being responsible and completing a task.

Once, I had to urgently deliver an important document to a company that had several offices around the city. Unfortunately, I went to the wrong place and it took me a while to get to the right address.

To this day, I remember the earful I got from my boss, a good-hearted fellow who was friendly but strict. I didn’t sleep well that night.

A summer job prepares teens for their future. They get experience and build their resumes. There’s also the thrill of drawing a paycheck, and learning how to handle that money right.

Jason worked 16 hours a week for $9 an hour. He didn’t get rich, but working a job beat the alternative of not having a dime.

“That was good money,” said Jason, who participated Tuesday at a teen unemployment hearing at the Chicago Urban League, where the Northeastern study was released.

Jack Wuest, executive director of the Alternative School Network, which commissioned the report, called for the passage of the federal Pathways Back Work Act, which would establish a $5 billion fund for training and jobs — during the summer and year-round — for low-income teens. The Alternative School Network works to re-enroll out-of-school youth.

Let’s hope lawmakers seriously contemplate the economic and social consequences for the nation of a generation of young people who simply can’t land that first job.

As for Jason, he hopes to get lucky again next summer.