The rising unemployment among teens

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Emma Kline

New Dutch Bros. on Val Vista set to open on April 28.

With the important stress among social distancing to contain the growing pandemic of COVID-19, jobs have become an issue to many individuals, whether it be finding work or to now being at an unemployment status. 

“I’ve definitely thought about trying to find another job,” senior Kenneth Scott explains after not being scheduled for another event at his current job. Scott currently works for a catering company, however, due to the virus, all events have now been cancelled.

“I’m not able to make any income [anymore], I used to have enough to go out, but now I’m not able to earn that money,” Scott continues. As before, his job consisted of him working every other week for ten hours.

However, he has expressed his interest in “want[ing] to get another job in between since I am not able to work, possibly places that have a drive through.” However his plan is to wait things out for now as it does not seem plausible finding a job during this pandemic. 

“There’s not really a way to get a job if you don’t have one already,” Scott concludes, especially as most businesses are starting to close to further practice social distancing and avoid direct contact with individuals.  

“I had something in the works with StateFarm, but we had to reschedule my interview due to the Coronavirus,” senior Zach Dellner says. Before, Dellner had been looking around applying to places and was able to get a callback. However, due to the virus, interviews have now been delayed for him. 

“I understand why my interview was postponed and think it is a good idea,” Dellner includes but still expresses his frustration in everything as more things start to get cancelled and more and more businesses begin to shut down. 

“Honestly I am sad but understand [the entirety of the situation at hand], I wanted a job in order to gain money,  but now with the pandemic, it’s hard to think of getting a job since I could be a risk to people and family,” senior Joyce Poon explains. As she talks about her priorities of getting a job is not as important as social distancing. 

“Personally I feel like it wouldn’t be right to look for a job as many people are also taking measures to stay home to prevent further spreading.” Poon adds as she believes in the importance of just staying at home to calm down the ever growing cases within the country.

As she believes it to be “better for me and everyone to wait it out a bit more before I go on thinking about my desires in working right now.” 

“This situation has changed the availability of job opportunities,” senior Jennie Tang points out when trying to find a job in the current situation that several individuals are in.
“Jobs now put people at risk of coming in contact with the virus but still a necessity nonetheless,” Tang continues but voices her actions in planning to find a job after the COVID-19 pandemic has calmed down.

Copious people have followed in taking the course of action to practice social distancing. However, social distancing has caused the effect of businesses being shut down, which in turn caused the unemployment rate to spike up. However, individuals are planning on finding jobs whenever the pandemic will start to die down and will hopefully resume to normality with what they have now.