Casual work and summertime: Assessing job prospects in the US


By Dr. Tim Sandle
July 8, 2024

Retail therapy? People visiting an outdoor market. — Image by © Tim Sandle

In the U.S. the summer break provides an opportunity for those seeking casual employment (such as students) to gain short-term tenures. To assess the prospects, a review has been conducted by the firm CoworkingCafe.

This review is based on a study of the job markets of more than 300 U.S. cities in order to identify the best places for unqualified young adults looking to work part-time.

To gather the data, the firm compared cities with at least 100,000 residents that had data for all metrics analysed.

The metrics used for this study were: youth part-time job availability (number of unqualified part-time job openings per 100,000 residents aged 16-24), youth idle rate (share of young population who did not participate in the labour force in the past 12 months), youth part-time work prevalence (difference between the number of young residents working full-time and those working less than full-time), share of part-time employees with health insurance coverage, and share of commuters riding public transportation (excluding taxicabs).

The data set shows that Northeast is the region with the most high-scoring cities for summer part-time work. In particular, Rochester, NY takes the first place nationally based on there being many entry-level job openings and high health insurance coverage among part-timers.

Also, within this region, Hartford, CT comes in 4th, while Syracuse, NY was 5th. Massachusetts was represented by Springfield in the 6th spot and Boston in the 12th place nationally.

The West Coast was also represented by five cities in our top 15. Everett, WA ranked 3rd nationally, with the most unqualified part-time job openings per capita. Another Washington city, Bellevue, rounded out our top 15. California had 3 cities in the top – Burbank & Torrance in the 10th and 11th spot, respectively, and Irvine came in 14th.

The Midwest was represented by 4 cities in our top 15 – with St. Louis, MO in the 7th spot and Cleveland, OH following in 8th place. Illinois had two cities in the top with Springfield in the 11th spot and Peoria in 13th.

The South-Atlantic region was also prominent, snatching one place on the podium – Charleston, SC ranked 2nd nationally, scoring high in most metrics. Richmond, VA came in the 9th spot nationally.

Commenting on the rankings, Ralph E. McKinney, Jr., Associate Professor of Management at Marshall University, recommends employers to: “plan early. February is a great time to advertise summer work opportunities to young adults. In addition to providing a realistic job-preview, an advertisement should clearly detail the compensation and benefits of the position.”

McKinney, from a statement sent to Digital Journal, continues: “This helps attract applicants that more closely align with that position. Moreover, where the advertisement is seen is also important to attracting the right applications.”

There are benefits for industry as well: “If an organization is looking at recruiting younger employees, efforts should be made to go beyond a digital application. That is, recruit from high school, colleges, community centres, and places where young people gather.”

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.