For their November meeting the Biggleswade group braved a very wet evening to meet at the Stratton House Hotel to discuss Saturday jobs. We talked about the jobs we had when we were in our teens in retail and hospitality and the skills and experience learnt in those first jobs that served us well.
We heard how the number of teenagers employed whilst in full time education has halved in the last 20 years, with 48% in 1999 dropping to just 25% 16/17 year olds in employment in 2020. However, that could be partly due to COVID.
Children are not allowed to be employed until they are 13 years old except in modelling, theatre and TV.
According to Wiki Job, popular jobs for teenagers now are:
- Hospitality and events – eg. restaurants, bars
- Food delivery
- Tutoring
- Brand ambassador on social media
- Retail
- Selling online (buying items cheaply at car boot sales and listing them for sale online)
Then followed plenty of time for a general chat to get to know each other.