job ideas for young teens (merged)

Swirlywurly

BerzoNo1 wrote: »

Hey all im new to the site

My son is 13 and hes despirate for a job i mean really despirate i said that he should do the paper route but hes not been so keen on that. If anyone has any ideas they would be much appreciated. Thanks

If he's really desperate then he'll take whatever he can get surely?

hellokitty08

hello

I believe at his age he can work a maximum of 5 1/2 hours on a week day (school holidays only) or at the weekend i think its a maximum of 20 hours a week. In tern time its 8 hours a week. His exempt from the National minimum Wage as t only applies to people aged 16+. There are certain places he cant work and not before 7am. If he works more then 4 hours, he must have 1 hour break.

Any adult working with a child, under the age of 16 must be CRB checked (new legislation) I would suggest places like the local shops. But if they are doing it legally they will have (usually) higher insurance costs, so many places are reluctant.. Also if the shop isnt insured for employees under the age of 16, you willing be taking all sorts of risks. (god forbid, if something happened to him)

I give advice to employers on recruiting young people, but we dont get asked about under 16 years olds very often, so some of this might not be 100% correct. i will check.

hellokitty08

http://www.4you2.org.uk/advice/work-training/childemployment.htm

This laws out some of the things i was saying. You can get your local Educational welfare office number from your local council.

BerzoNo1

hi,
thanks for the help but could you mabye suggest places to work instead of telling me about the ages and how many hours. thanks anyways, can you get back to me when you have checked

berzo

Swirlywurly

BerzoNo1 wrote: »

hi,
thanks for the help but could you mabye suggest places to work instead of telling me about the ages and how many hours. thanks anyways, can you get back to me when you have checked

berzo

Ha ha...

Thats gonna go down like a lead balloon.

pulliptears

BerzoNo1 wrote: »

hi,
thanks for the help but could you mabye suggest places to work instead of telling me about the ages and how many hours. thanks anyways, can you get back to me when you have checked

berzo

How incredibly rude. Maybe you could try google and do it yourself!

sarymclary

My 13y/o got a job last summer hols doing a dog walking round. He had about 4 regular customers, and carried on doing it until the clocks changed in the autumn. At the same time he asked around in local shops for some work, and the tea room in the village had a girl on holiday, so he did 2 weeks filling in for her p/t. With the dog walking also came an opportunity to do odd jobs, and gardening/mowing. He took his older brother along with him and they did some weeding and mowing for a few days each week too. They both did 2 weeks childminding for a lady we know in the village who's 4 children needed looking after while she worked, so they did that too (said it was the easiest money ever earned because they just watched TV and played with the kids all day). They weren't fazed by that because they have younger brothers.

This year hasn't been as easy, but just last week he asked some builders working across the road if they had any need for some help, and they initially said no. Then they saw him clearing a load of rubble out of my front garden, obviously realised he might actually be capable of grafting, and came back later that day and offered him a job on another site they're working on locally. He starts at 8.30am tomorrow for the next week.

The key to any youngster getting work is coming across keen and eager to work hard. My 16y/o can't get work for love nor money, but it's partly due to his demeanour, and there's no way he'd be able to work on a building site, whereas my 14y/o can't wait to get out there to earn some cash, and has a really good chatty, confident personality. There's no paper round to be had here, otherwise he'd gladly do that.

I'd recommend either getting them to knock door to door locally, or designing a leaflet to post through doors offering services such as car washing, odd jobbing, garden clearing, etc., but they have to be prepared to do the work well, and responsibly.

hellokitty08

are you people mad or something? There is no way in a million years that a 14 year old is going to covered on insurance to work on a building site or for a builder. What on earth are you going to do, if god forbid, they are in an accident and can never work again! You wouldnt be entitled to claim anything and if they accidentally injured someone, you would get sued!!!! And i dont mean to scare monger, but i work with employers and young people (not children) and we come across cases all the time of inappropriate beahviour from employers. Anyone who employes someone under the age of 16 should be CRB checked, you could be sending your children to work for the local sex offender for all you know!

(it sounds harsh, i know, but you really should try friends and family and people that you think can be trusted, rather then anyone from the street)

I agree that some of the things would be ok, dog walking, gardening, car washing, etc, but maybe a group of them going together, or an oldern child being responsible might be a good suggestion. I am not here to scare people, but this stuff does happen. I wouldnt advise any child to give there mobile number to anyone they didnt know, or a potential employer. We have issues with this all the time.

pulliptears

hellokitty08 wrote: »

are you people mad or something? There is no way in a million years that a 14 year old is going to covered on insurance to work on a building site or for a builder. What on earth are you going to do, if god forbid, they are in an accident and can never work again! You wouldnt be entitled to claim anything and if they accidentally injured someone, you would get sued!!!! And i dont mean to scare monger, but i work with employers and young people (not children) and we come across cases all the time of inappropriate beahviour from employers. Anyone who employes someone under the age of 16 should be CRB checked, you could be sending your children to work for the local sex offender for all you know!

(it sounds harsh, i know, but you really should try friends and family and people that you think can be trusted, rather then anyone from the street)

I agree that some of the things would be ok, dog walking, gardening, car washing, etc, but maybe a group of them going together, or an oldern child being responsible might be a good suggestion. I am not here to scare people, but this stuff does happen. I wouldnt advise any child to give there mobile number to anyone they didnt know, or a potential employer. We have issues with this all the time.

I agree, have a read of this:

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-450831/Boy-15-crushed-death-working-building-site.html

RoxieW

Try the local market - I was Saturday girl on a fruit and veg from age 14. It was hard work but a good laugh as there were about 4 of us on a Saturday the same age.
I got £20 a day for Sats, then we could work in hols if we wanted to for £15 a day. This was 10 years ago and I thought I was loaded!