Last summer I had a job. It was my first “real” job ever. But now, I don’t. And it’s hard to find another one. Unfortunately, this is the case for millions of teens across the country and for many students at Jamesville-DeWitt High School.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for 16-to-19-year-olds for the month of April was at 26.1 percent. This is almost three times the amount of the national unemployment rate, which is at about 10 percent.

Teens make up 3.2 percent of the nation’s working population, according to Time magazine. But at the moment there are 4.2 million teens that can’t get a job, have subsequently given up, or would like a better job than the one they have now. The 4.2 million is an 84 percent increase from 2007.

But that’s just a bunch of statistics. What do those numbers really mean?

Not anything good.

Middle-aged people who are being forced out of their higher paying jobs are forcing teens out of their jobs. For example, according to Time, from 2000 to 2007, 553,000 55-to-64-year-olds joined the retail industry. Great, right? No. At the same time teens working in retail fell from 2 million to 1,581,000, which is a loss of 419,000 jobs.

When teens don’t get jobs, I see a vicious cycle taking root. Many jobs require a certain amount of work-experience. Without a job, there can’t be any work experience. So more teens can’t get certain jobs. And as those teens grow up, they don’t have the experience to work at higher paying jobs. And unemployment grows even worse.

Not a pretty picture. And as a teenager applying for summer jobs, I am experiencing this problem first-hand. I have applied for about 14 jobs so far, at a myriad of places like Target, Subway, Panera, Wegmans, Regal Theatres, DeWitt Town Cleaners, Sally Beauty Supply and Blockbuster. I have heard back from only one place, Target, which sent a two-sentence e-mail that said “Thank you for taking the time to apply with us. We are unable to offer you a position at this time, but we do appreciate your interest in Target,” or essentially, “haha, better luck next time!” So, I decided to apply to another 10 places.

Great.

Other places require resumes. I am 18 years old. I have had one job. What else is there to put on a resume?

The thing is, I didn’t have this problem last year. I applied for a job at Drumlins, got it, and worked about 30 hours a week. Unfortunately, my job was less than satisfactory, because there were bees everywhere come August and I had panic attacks, because I’m really ridiculously terrified of bees. Fun times.

But I’m not the only one. Other students are having trouble, too. Senior Jenny Legaspi says she was trying to find jobs, but “school doesn’t end in time for the two jobs I was looking at.” Senior Linsay Royer is also having difficulty finding work, because, she says, “I have no experience. Also, I’m leaving next year for college.” Senior Nina Hylen cites college as a problem in the job search as well, but for a different reason. “College kids coming home get a lot of the jobs,” she says.

Senior Kyrsten Schreiber mentions how some places don’t actively look at applications. For example, Panera has an online application that I filled out. But Schreiber says, “Panera will not call you. You have to go in and ask for a paper application to fill out. And then they still won’t call you. You need to call and ask the General Manager about your application.” Only after all of these extra steps did Schreiber get a job at Panera. Frustrating, much?

Sadly, it looks like this problem isn’t going to go away. So, good luck J-D students. You’re going to need it.