A couple passes by a help wanted sign at the Locker Room in the Las Vegas Premium Outlets South shopping mall at Las Vegas Boulevard South and Warm Springs Road Thursday, June 2, 2022.
Sunday, June 5, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Brody Clark, a recent Liberty High School graduate, has worked a summer job before at a Las Vegas landscaping business.
It was hot, strenuous work, and he made a couple dollars over minimum wage.
Today, with businesses facing a tight labor market, Clark is seeing other teens making nearly double the minimum wage or more.
“I worked at Star Nursery one summer and I was making $12 per hour working outside, sweating my butt off. Now I see people flipping burgers for $20 per hour,” Clark said.
A quick look at an internet job board tells the story. A local fast-food taco restaurant is advertising pay up to $18 an hour for team members. The job is open to those 16 and older.
An Asian-themed fast-food restaurant has an ad for a job paying up to $17 an hour. And a deli is paying $19 an hour, nearly twice Nevada’s minimum wage of $9.75 an hour.
“It’s a better time than probably ever before to be a young person looking for a summer job,” said Irene Bustamante Adams, chief strategy officer for Workforce Connections, which connects businesses and employees.
“Because of the labor shortage … young adults are seeing more opportunities,” said Bustamante Adams, noting plentiful jobs in areas such as retail and restaurants.
A recent walk through the Las Vegas South Premium Outlets mall, a few miles south of the Strip, found nearly 20 “help wanted” signs. A clothing store was offering $15 an hour for new employees.
At a nearby strip mall, a coffee shop, a chicken wing restaurant and a Panda Express restaurant were looking for workers.
Elizabeth Blau, co-owner of Honey Salt, a restaurant near the northwest Summerlin neighborhood, said the influx of summer workers will be welcome by restaurants and other businesses.
“You can’t go anywhere that’s not looking for help, no matter if you’re talking about Target or a bakery. I think young people going out there are going to be happy with what they see,” Blau said.
“Everyone is so short-staffed everywhere,” Blau said. “Unfortunately, the high school workforce isn’t going to solve that problem. Everyone wants to get back to normal life, but COVID numbers are rising, so that’s taking out some of the workforce. It’s been a vicious cycle for many business owners.”
Corey Clark, Henderson parks and recreation manager, said the city is facing a shortage of swimming pool lifeguards this year.
“We’ve been struggling a bit,” Clark said. “With lifeguards, we’re on a modified operating plan at our pools. We’re not as open now as we were pre-COVID, and that’s solely due to not having enough lifeguards on staff.”
For the first time this year, the city sent recruiters to some Clark County high schools and upped pay for lifeguards, he said.
A lifeguard can now start out making over $14 an hour in Henderson, and those who teach swim lessons can earn more.
“It does feel like the (labor shortage) has hit the aquatics industry particularly hard,” Clark said.
According to the American Lifeguard Association, about half of all pools in the United States need more workers.
Jeff Waddoups, a UNLV professor and chair of the school’s economics department, said this is a job-seeker's market.
Nevada’s unemployment rate is 5%, which is among the highest in the country, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of jobs for teenagers,” Waddoups said. “Wages are generally increasing for jobs lower on the skill hierarchy, which are jobs generally done by teens.”
