Employers are recruiting young workers as an answer to their difficulties in hiring and retaining workers. Some industry groups are pushing for looser child labour laws to allow those industries to put teens to work for longer hours.
Teenage employment in the US surged to more than 32 percent in summer 2021 and for the first time in history the unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds fell below the rate for 20- to 24-year-olds.
Businesses around the United States that have advertised hiring 14- and 15-year-olds through the pandemic’s “labor shortage” include several restaurants in Pennsylvania, a Pumpkin Patch in Liberty, Missouri, a Burger King in Ohio, and a McDonald’s in Oregon. Employers such as Chipotle have expanded recruiting efforts this year to target younger workers. Other restaurants and employers such as amusement parks and seasonal businesses around the US have touted their reliance on teenage workers under 18 as a labor shortage solution. One restaurant in Arkansas, noting it had struggled to hire and retain workers, recently offered to pay its teen workers for one hour to do homework before their shift.
The labor shortage concerns have galvanized an effort by some elected officials – mostly Republicans – to scale back some child labor regulations.
Three Republicans and one Democrat in the Ohio state senate have recently introduced a bill to expand the hours minors under the age of 16 are permitted to work in the state, from 7pm to 9pm during the school year with a parent or guardian’s permission.
In Wisconsin, Republican state senators recently approved a bill, SB332, and sent it to the Wisconsin state assembly. The bill would expand permissible work hours for minors under the age of 16.
Supporters of the bill, which include Republican legislators, the Wisconsin Restaurant Association and other industry groups, have argued the bill could help small businesses that are experiencing hiring and staff retention issues amid some industries experiencing labor shortages throughout 2021.
Under current law, minors are permitted to work from 7am to 7pm from labor day to 31 May and 7am to 9pm from 1 June to labor day.
The bill would expand those times and dates from 6am to 9.30pm on a day preceding a school day and 6am to 11pm on a day preceding a non-school day, and expand weekly hours from three hours during a school week to 18 hours.
Wisconsin Republicans have successfully passed several bills in the last decade to weaken child labor laws, including in 2011 eliminating limits on the number of hours and days minors, ages 16 and 17, could work, eliminating work permits for 16 and 17-year-olds, and replacing all uses of the term “child labor” in state employment statutes with the term “employment of minors” in 2017.
“The passage of this bill would be a slippery slope for eliminating child labor practices in Wisconsin and in the United States in general,” said Stephanie Bloomingdale, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, which opposes SB332. “Young teenagers need to have good work experiences that help them to learn work ethics and valuable skills, but at the same time, recognizing they also are kids that need time to study, to sleep and to prepare their minds for their future.”
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