Students struggle to find summer jobs

Pitt student Andrea Bennett, who is taking summer classes, spends about 30 hours per week… Pitt student Andrea Bennett, who is taking summer classes, spends about 30 hours per week working at a Subway in Mt. Washington.

Still, that’s not enough, she said.

“I work 30 hours, but that’s absolutely nothing when you get paid minimum wage,” she said.

A student at Pitt Johnstown, Bennett said she comes home to Pittsburgh in the summer to take classes and to work, but she has a hard time finding someone to hire her just for the summer.

She surveyed a couple of options and applied for a summer counseling job but had no luck.

As for her hours at Subway, Bennett said they haven’t decreased much since last summer, but over the past couple of years, she has seen a drop.

In the current economic climate, many students like Bennett are struggling to find summer jobs, let alone jobs substantial enough to pay for food and rent. But a few local businesses say the economy hasn’t affected their employment needs.

American Apparel manager Cliff Chien said sales always drop at the beginning of summer, when many students leave Oakland, but this summer has shown a slightly larger drop than previous summers.

Even so, the drop hasn’t affected the store enough to stop them from hiring when two student employees left for the summer, he said.

Chien said the store provides each employee with sufficient hours by keeping the number of employees consistent and low. So, while the store doesn’t employ many, it properly supports those it does hire, he said.

Chien said he’s hoping sales will pick up later in the summer, and he shouldn’t have to cut back hours.

Lans Oscar, who manages the Rite Aid on Forbes, said his store hasn’t had to cut back on hiring at all.

Like Chien, Oscar said business slows down after the spring semester ends, but he said the decrease in business has been comparable to last summer’s.

The store hires mostly Pitt students, so other people looking for jobs haven’t displaced students there, he said.

Some students have found success applying for jobs through the work-study program.

Pitt student Yewande Olugbade said she used the work-study program to find her job conducting research at Children’s Hospital – but not without difficulty.

Olugbade said she applied to about 10 different spaces and never heard back from most of them.

Olugbade works at Children’s Hospital about 23 hours per week. She’ll be busy working there and taking classes this summer, she said. But after the summer session, she said she will need to take another job if she can’t get more hours.

Olugbade said she expects a difficult job search ahead of her, so she plans on looking around wherever she can, starting with the work-study office again.

Pitt junior Eileen Tong said she easily found her job at the International Society for Bipolar Disorders through the work-study office.

Tong said she applied to several different places and received offers from a few before choosing the society, where she does administrative work.

In fact, Tong said she only encountered trouble with her job search when she was looking for an internship.

At first, she tried to find a paid internship, but eventually she had to settle for an unpaid position at Allegheny Psychological Counseling Services.

“Most companies either have downsized their internships or don’t have any at all,” she said.

Another Pitt junior, Chioma Okemuo, said she found her job at the Child Development Center by looking around early on Futurelinks.

While taking summer classes, Okemuo said she will work about 20 hours per week, and after classes end, her employer offered to extend her hours.

Still, as a pharmacy student, she said she wants a job that will give her experience, and she hopes to find work at a pharmacy after the summer session.

Okemuo said she realizes that she may run into difficulty with this but will still make the effort.

Despite some students’ success, not everyone can find employment in this economy.

Pitt student Gbemi Alabi said despite looking for a job, she hasn’t found one yet.

So far, she said she has looked mostly on campus, but she may have to branch out soon.

Like Olugbade said, “It’s hard to find a job in this economy. Not many out there are hiring.”