Job Program Helps Teens with Employment

Teenagers in the city of Malden are able to enjoy the opportunity of finding employment, which is something that many teenagers have struggled with for quite some time. There are a number of different positions that teenagers in the city are currently filling in, whether it has to do with answering phones or filing assorted paperwork. This year was the first year that an expansion took place within the teen job program, enabling more teenagers to find the employment that they were seeking. In total, the city has hired around 335 teenagers this year, which are actually around 200 more teenagers than usual. The city has also made some serious demands about more effort being put into the process of hiring a larger number of teenagers. It is believed that with the expansion, teenager employment in the city can expand greatly, not just throughout the summer but even beyond it.

The Mayor of the city, Gary Christenson, has said, “We really wanted to give the kids an idea what to expect as they grow older, with employers and colleges and universities.’’ She also said, “I didn’t want to increase it just to increase it. I wanted to add some new standards.” Several years ago, before the expansion of this program, teenagers had the opportunity to fill out an application and could possibly be chosen for an employment program, which would only last for a total of six week. However, for this year, things were switched up a bit and in order to get a position in which they could earn $8 per hour, applications had to write a paragraph or statement about the reasons they were looking for employment and what the desire was behind having a job. Manning Hall said, “We wanted the kids to put a little bit more of themselves into the application.’’ He also said, “If it was not fully filled out, we sent it back.”

The program for teenagers is currently being run by the outreach coordinator for the community, Karen Hayes. The program was recently restructured so that it would have more to offer a large number of teenagers looking to find employment. Hayes is working directly out of the mayor’s office. Right before the summer started, back in the beginning of June, the city council had approved $100,000 that would be put toward this particular program, along with other grants that are being use, which has helped to improve the overall youth employment for the city. Christenson has said, “A lot of credit goes to the City Council. “This was the one sort of non-controversial issue.’’