Rejection has echoed across campus this summer, bouncing off desperate job seekers and deafening the unluckiest. Most people have a friend, or at least a friend’s roommate’s friend, who drifted into June jobless. Further, as office space is shrinking along with the Nasdaq, many of those who eventually snagged a piece of the job market failed to nab their first, second or even tenth choices.
“I applied to about 14 places,” Steve and Barry’s University Sportswear employee and UW sophomore Kim Wiedmeyer said. “[Steve and Barry’s] was the only one that called me back.”
However, Wiedmeyer had more luck than her emblematic friend. After returning empty-handed from a 3-week hunt for a full-time job, one friend of Wiedmeyer settled for a part-time library job and a stint in the classroom.
Similarly, UW junior Liz Tymus’s fruitless search for a full-time position forced her to fall back on two less appealing options. Tymus’s part-time jobs clerking at The Den and acting as an “office rat,” as she called it, at a UW English department office were not her first choices.
“I tried to find another job, but it was extremely difficult,” she said. “I probably applied to 15 other places.”
Although no one tracks where, when or how many students work during the summer, UW Student Financial Services director Steve Van Ess said he perceives students are having a hard time finding work in the heat of 2002.
“I don’t have any objective data that says students are working less,” he said. “But, anecdotally, I have a son who is 21 years old, and a lot of his friends are having trouble finding summer jobs. They are not finding them as fast as they had in the past and the jobs are not as good as they would like.”
Additionally, while exact statistics are not available, the UW Student Job Board, a web-based bulletin board that posts numerous on- and off-campus job openings, is significantly less robust than last year.
“There’s no doubt that there are less jobs listed this year than at this time last year, no doubt,” Student Job Center director Tim Putzier said. “And State Street, off-campus people are definitely hiring less.”
However, Madison summers rarely boast an overflowing job market.
“I think that summer jobs are always fairly hard to come by in Madison,” UW senior Kate Mulvey said. “There are still so many students here who need jobs but it’s so much less busy. Last year was really bad for me; I ended up housekeeping because I needed a job.”
Jobs do exist, but the frustration of jobless students suggests the desirable portion of jobs has shrunk recently.
“I feel compelled to say that there are jobs out there,” Putzier said.
“Two hundred-some jobs are listed on the job board right now.”
Still, since the nation’s economy began to lose its healthy glow, many plum positions have withered and died.
“The past few years have been really good for employees,” Putzier said. “You could walk down the street and see help-wanted signs everywhere. The signs are still there, but just not in as many places or as good of places.”
Falling off?
While summer is the traditional time for college students to fortify their bank accounts against two long semesters of post-class fun, a large proportion of UW students weave work into their fall study schedule. Although the summer job scene may have failed to quench summer residents’ thirst for employment, Van Ess and Putzier were confident that at least university-related employment would remain plentiful once school starts.
In the face of the state government’s proposed $44 million UW System budget cut, students might be concerned that campus jobs would suffer accordingly. However, Van Ess maintained, student workers will not feel the blow.
“We’ve always had a lot more [student] jobs that we have people,” he said. “This campus isn’t going broke. The tasks still need to be done. And the wages will be the same — maybe even higher.”
The university minimum wage for students, currently set at $6.75 per hour, tops the Wisconsin state minimum by a dollar. Each year a wage planning committee reviews the rate and Putzier said it has been increased every year for the past few years. Last year UW raised the wage 25 cents; a similar boost is likely again this year.
The largest employers on campus include the libraries, UW Housing, the Wisconsin Union and the Athletic Department. Van Ess said these groups are “always struggling to fill their jobs.” These options may not represent everyone’s first choices, but they still pay the bills.
UW senior Heather Jordan fell back on the Union during a frustrating job search last spring.
“It was kind of a last stop,” she said. “I was desperate for a job during spring semester and it’s easier to find campus jobs because they’re required to hire students.”
Although university-affiliated employment may be secure, off-campus options are less isolated from economic downturns.
“There might be some belt-tightening,” Van Ess said. “People might not buy as many sweatshirts or CDs because their parents didn’t send them to school with that much money, so the stores might hire one less clerk.”
While non-university fall positions might be less plentiful than last year, the wave of returning students always brings a resurgence of money and jobs. The Student Job Board listings generally peak during September, showcasing an average of 800 to 900 opportunities.
“30,000 people show up,” Putzier said. “There’s certainly more money and more demand [for employees].”
Balancing act
When campus awakens from its humid summer stupor, many of the freshest Madison inhabitants will dive into the work pool. Amid the barrage of unfamiliarity, the added stress of a part-time job can take its toll. To avoid a mental breakdown, experts recommend a maximum of 10 to 15 work hours.
“Most students who get into trouble are working too many hours,” social work professor Aaron Brower said. “After you get a sense of how much time it takes to do things around here you can figure out a work schedule accordingly.”
Perhaps counterintuitively, studies show a combination of schoolwork and real-world work can aid academic performance.
“Research shows that students who work a minimum of 10-15 hours do better academically,” Putzier said. “It makes students structure their time better. If a parent was asking me, ‘Should my student work?’ I’d say yes, but probably no more than 12 hours.”
Amber Wiedenhoeft, a 5th year senior and two-year veteran of the Memorial Library Microforms and Media Center, said her work helps her focus on studying.
“I don’t have so much time to sit around,” she said. “This job is a lot of down time between helping people, so it’s basically getting paid to study.”
Sometimes work can be more appealing than studying. Tymus said The Den is “pretty cool” about taking time off for school-related reasons, but that she would rather work than study.
“It’s easy to get distracted and still feel productive,” she said.
While some students land flexible employment, new employees can find it harder to get time off. Blockbuster employee Tom Plochocki’s two-and-a-half year tenure helps him get desirable work shifts.
“I’ve been here so long that now I have a lot more clout,” he said. “But when I first worked here it could suck; if people needed you to work you just had to do it.”
