Employee Shortages and Student Workers

Illustration by Nicolaj Arroyo

By Ellie Heyerdahl

Opinion Editor

January 2022

With all the free time students received last year due to online learning, many of them got jobs. I personally was working 40 hours a week if not more, and it got even worse in the summer.

Now that we are back in school it has become difficult for many students to develop a healthy balance between their work and school lives, let alone have a social life. On average, students at our school work 25 hours a week along with spending seven to eight hours at school.

“It hasn't significantly affected my grades or anything, but having to worry about work does leave me less time to do my homework and study," said sophomore Lenni Jones. "Honestly, most of the time I just don't do it because I don't have time."

The overwhelming feeling of having to go home and finish assignments after a full day of learning and hard work leaves students mentally exhausted. At senior McKenna Rooney’s job, “it’s always the same four high schoolers who work almost full time at a part-time job that pays the price. The people holding the workplace together are overwhelmingly students who are being abused for having even the smallest amount of work ethic.”

This over-reliance on young people to fill jobs is a nation-wide trend, and in October, the Wisconsin senate approved Senate bill 332 to broaden the hours that children can work during the school year. The bill is currently being reviewed in the State Assembly.

Employers are relying upon anyone who can work hours during the worker-shortage that we are experiencing, and students can’t afford to miss out. With their future life goals and current expenses, they are unable to refuse these extra hours. “Students are being nonstop exploited. They need to pay for college and employers are aware of it, so they constantly get called in to work more hours than are legal,” said Kenna Rooney, a senior.