Do your 15 year olds work?

[TropicofCapricorn]

If so, what are they doing?

Just on another thread,and others who just seem to think 15 year olds can easily get jobs.

Gone are the days of paper rounds etc so what jobs are they imagining the 15 yo will be doing? Odd jobs? Regular Saturday jobs? Where?

Ours coaches a pre-school sports class, along with the class leader. Started as a DoE volunteer role and was offered a paid position. Doesn’t interfere with school or social life as it’s early on a weekend morning.

Most councils require employers to get a licence before they can employ children nowadays, so it’s much less common than it used to be I think.

This is so interesting. I live in Australia and it’s completely normal for 15yo to work. At 15 my daughter was a nationally accredited netball umpire (started at 12) and also a qualified swimming instructor. She’s always had a job (often 2) ever since. Now 18 and at Uni and does umpiring and works in a pub.

Yip, my eldest worked in a cafe from 14 then went to TK Maxx at 16 as part time jobs. My now 15 year old worked in a café for over a year before now working in a Hairdressers.

My son had a paper round from 13 to 16 - they are still a big thing around here as we have a large older population who still like to read a physical paper. I do think paper rounds will be gone in next 5 years or so.

My DD works in a large and busy cafe at a popular tourist spot and the owner employs from age 14. DD started there at 16 as we assumed no one would employ her before that.

We've realised the owner likes having lots of younger people
on zero hour contracts so he can pay them the lowest rates and keep them on the shift rota until they are 18. Many then leave at 18 to go off to uni so he always takes on more young people to replace them.

They are older now, but both of my sons had jobs as church organists from about 14 years old. Lots of churches struggle to find organists and both were taken on because they were competent pianists with good sight reading so they learned the organ 'on the job'.
Their jobs paid in two hours (1 practice, 1 service per week) more than most kids of that age would earn in a full day.

That's brilliant, such a different job to add to their cv.

Both of mine worked in a chip shop at 15 … terrible money though, about £3 an hour 😳

I knew someone who was the organ scholar at Cambridge. She got free accommodation for services rendered.

Mine are just 16 and they'll be looking to get a job next month after gcses (started looking but not much). Most say over 18 around here. Mine have all done voluntary work for d of e and continued for well over a year. Hoping that this will help show good work ethic etc. It's not like even 6 years ago when dc1 had a paper round then an adhoc job at the local leisure centre at 14.

At 15, mine did babysitting and dog sitting/dog walking. Also, she made quite a lot by buying and then selling second-hand trainers.

My 15 year old DD has a Saturday job at a hairdressers and 14 year DS works in a local pub pot washing. Both love having their own money and DD is putting hers towards world challenge next year.

Paper rounds here too, this was about 5 or 6 years ago (I remember DS being given rubber gloves to post his with during covid). They only did weekend rounds and it didn’t pay much but only took half an hour so it was a token thing really. The hardest part for them was marking up the papers, they got a bag with a list and however many copies of each paper to sort out and mark up before they went, I did have to oversee that but they do have SENs. I did it myself on the odd occasion when one of them was ill and really enjoyed being out bright and early on the weekend mornings, they had a nice area to deliver to.

For DofE volunteering they both did it with organisations they were already part of, DS was a young leader with Beavers when he was an Explorer Scout and DD volunteered at her archery club with setting up and maintaining equipment (DH is also a member and supervised).

Oh yes and pet sitting, they have done a lot of that over the years.

DS2 got an organ scholarship to one of the Oxford colleges. Having played the organ at a parish church every Sunday for over 4 years certainly helped. The scholarship is worth bugger all now though.

Dd worked at 15 in a local ice cream shop. She is 17 now & has 2 part time jobs - both food service.

she loves the work & the ££. Most of her friends have similar part time work now they are 17. A few worked at 15.

I assume so - he is paid properly (not cash in hand) and other posters on this thread have said their under 16 year olds work in cafes and restaurants.

This exactly, my teen does have a casual job but it's through family and not strictly legal.

Mine had to fill in the licensing forms for their paper rounds because they were under 16 and read risk assessments etc. It was paid in cash but all above board.

I don't think 'saturday' jobs exist quite the same as when I was that age.
My 16 year old is keen to get weekend/summer work, but most places don't seem to want under 18s or expect you to have experience! He is a little limited in his options due to living rurally, and even our local shop said it wasn't worth him doing a paper round as it would take him longer to get to the shop than do the round!

...that was supposed to be £5 .. fat fingers. but still...

Our paper shop dropped all the papers to the houses of the paperboys/girls so all they had to do was mark them up anda head out the door (they both had the same round, one after the other and it was a 40 min round walk from our house).

For us, papers had to be delivered between 3:30-5 and express and star were strict that it couldn’t be after 5pm as they would have customers complaining.

old people want their papers at a certain time 🤷🏻‍♀️😁

They should be studying and socialising at this age. Working too early can encourage them to leave education as the money can be addictive and of course long term a really bad idea. My friends son refused to do A levels because he was keen to earn minimum wage washing pots. He is still working in a kitchen on minimum wage 15 years later.

Why?

Most 15 year olds are capable of working and doing a good job.