Many jobs start to hire in the 14-16 age range, which of course is in our high school age range. So high school is a very keen time for adolescents to enter the workforce. Luckily enough, I go to a high school and can get a scoop on how my classmates contribute to the economy. To take a look at this, I asked students why they started working and where they work. 

Two classmates at Apex are senior Elias Jefferies and junior Connor McFadden. Elias and Connor took an interesting route as they started their own lawn care business. Connor did this over last summer and plans to do it again. Last summer Connor would just recruit his friends to help him with the job. Now he will do the same but with a business partner. Connor and Elias focus mainly on the Macgregor Downs neighborhood because of the size of the neighborhood. They started advertising already with putting flyers in mailboxes around the neighborhood. 

Other peers will obviously take the restaurant business. Mason Hoke works at the Remington Grill, Sullivan Boyer works at Ruckus, Maddox Bright works at Fresh, and Wynter Davenport works at Dunkin’. These are just a few of Apex students in the food industry. The local Ruckus “Pizza, Pasta, and Spirits” is home to many Apex attendees as well as Sully Boyer. With Sully, I , Tas Clayton, work on the expo line where we help prepare food. Currently Sage Sigmon, Mary Martin, and Olivia Petrovich all work as hostesses as well. The interesting thing about Ruckus is the amount of former employees who are educated here at Apex: Cranz Smelczer, Sawyer Robinson, Alyssa Anderson, Holly Coleman, Michael Novak, Aidan Nicholas, and many more. 

The other aspect of young people earning their own pay is the “why?” question. Obviously with school, friends, family, and other events, there is not a lot of time to manage a work schedule as well. So this makes summer jobs much more popular than jobs during the school year and sports seasons. But the freedom of spending your own money is the common drive. Whether it be on clothes, food, or gas, teens love nothing more than a sense of freedom, making their own money certainly brings that rush.