Apr 14, 2009

Cupcakes and Cattle Breeding: Teens Turn to Summer Start-UpsBy Sue ShellenbargerOnline.WSJ.com

Lexie Oliver, 16, has been trying for weeks to get a summer job, to earn spending money and to feel productive. But the search has proven “really difficult,” says the Gainesville, Fla., high-school sophomore.

After applying at numerous retailers and getting turned down, Ms. Oliver has made a decision: If she wants a job this summer, she figures she’ll have to create her own. She’s already working on starting a handmade jewelry business, finding materials, tapping a friend to build a Web site and asking relatives for help marketing her wares.

Faced with the darkest summer-job market since the government began collecting data after World War II, a growing number of teens are turning to entrepreneurship. The government’s $1.2 billion youth jobs program is expected to make barely a dent in overall teen joblessness this summer. Employment among 16- to 19-year-olds is still likely to sink to a new low of 31% or 32% this summer, down from a previous nadir of 32.7% in 2008, says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

Thus “for many kids, starting a business may be the only option if they want to make some money,” says Jack Kosakowski, president of Junior Achievement in the U.S., part of JA Worldwide, Colorado Springs, Colo., which runs youth programs on work-force readiness and financial literacy through 585 offices in 124 countries.

Amid rising interest, enrollment in a Boston camp run by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship doubled this spring. Junior Achievement entrepreneurship programs in Texas and California report a 30% increase in inquiries. And at CampCEO, an entrepreneurship-training program at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, inquiries are running 30% ahead of a year ago, compared with a national pattern of flat enrollment in youth camps in general.

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