Looking for a summer job during a pandemic
Opportunities remain, but with fewer options
Milwaukee students are out of class and ready to shift into summer jobs.
But, like everything else these days, it’s not the same as in the past.
With fairs and festivals canceled, bars and restaurants operating at limited capacity, and many businesses unable to host internships, young people in Milwaukee are facing fewer options.
“You’re told in high school and middle school that if you go to college, you’re going to have opportunities lined up for you,” said Mikayla Gilbert, a junior marketing major at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “But when the whole world shuts down, those opportunities diminish, and you kind of feel swindled in a way.”
Gilbert landed a marketing internship at Herman Miller, a high-end furniture company, in New Holland, Mich. The pay was competitive, she said, and included funding for housing and relocation. She was excited to learn more about sales in the world of design.
Then the pandemic hit, and Herman Miller canceled her internship. Gilbert wasn’t sure quite what to do until she learned that The Commons, an initiative of the Greater Milwaukee Committee that supports young people professionally, was hosting a virtual summer internship program. She applied, and was accepted.
Now, Gilbert is working in a parttime, 10-week internship that comes
with a stipend of $1,500 and professional development opportunities, like guest speakers, that would come with an in-person internship.
The program, Gilbert says, “is an exercise in critical thinking.” And, she’s been able to keep working her restaurant job for about 20 hours a week, thanks to a Paycheck Protection Program loan the restaurant received.
Gilbert’s summer story is almost a best-case scenario in a world that increasingly revolves around least-worstcase scenarios.
Joe Poeschl, co-founder and project director at The Commons, said that demand for the virtual internship program was overwhelming. At first it was exciting, he said, “then also kind of depressing.” Funding was limited, and The Commons could only accept about 120 students out of more than 700 who applied.
That’s a story that repeats itself across the city: There is work, but lots of people want it.
Ben Slowey, 24, was laid off from his job as a dishwasher at Company Brewing in March, with the understanding that he would be rehired if the brewery could afford it. His hours had already been cut in the slow winter season to about 12 hours a week.
“It was really hard to get by,” Slowey said.
The idea was to work more once the summer season picked up, but that hope hasn’t materialized. And though the majority of his co-workers have been called back to work, Slowey hasn’t yet.
Slowey, who graduated from UWMilwaukee in 2018, freelances for music site Breaking and Entering; he made about $100 there in May. And it took more than two months, but he found out last week that he qualified for unemployment benefits.
Summerfest, State Fair were big losses
Summerfest, which was canceled earlier this month, typically creates upwards of 2,000 seasonal jobs each year, according to media relations officer Julie Dieckelman. In 2019, more than half of those jobs – which include admissions, box office operations, concessions and more – were filled by people 25 and under. That doesn’t include hundreds of additional jobs created by food and merchandise vendors.
The situation is similar on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Fair, which will be quiet this summer for the first time in 75 years. Last year, the State Fair Park hired just under 1,000 seasonal employees, according to director of public affairs Kristi Chuckel. More than 90% of those employees were 22 and under, and close to a third had yet to turn 18.
Vendors at the State Fair do their own hiring, adding to the total.
Tim Gill, co-director of Original Cream Puffs, said the organization usually hires about 200 seasonal employees to work there. Over half of those jobs typically go to high school and college-aged people, he said. Original Cream Puffs — which is run by the Wisconsin Bakers Association — is planning to roll out a pared-down operation this summer, and applications are open for a variety of jobs. (They’re even looking for a backup Cravin, the Cream Puff mascot.)
Still, Gill said, they will only be able to hire about half of their usual summer workforce, with priority going to returning employees.
Milwaukee Recreation, which usually hires younger seasonal employees to work on playgrounds and at pools — as lifeguards and swimming instructors — is paring down summer hiring, too. Julie McLaren, a recreation supervisor, said that though summer staffing would involve more shifting of year-round staff than new hires, there were still some seasonal positions this year, such as monitors for Milwaukee’s community centers.
Milwaukee’s summer youth employment program, called Earn & Learn, is operating at about 80% capacity this year, said Tim McMurtry, the program’s community relations manager. The program typically has three components: an internship program at City Hall and work experience programs in the private sector and in nonprofits and community-based organizations. Only the latter remains this year, he said; it will serve about 500 students out of the 900 or so who applied.
McMurtry said that when schools shuttered suddenly in March, the program lost three crucial months during which it would typically be able to recruit students in person. Usually, schools would help spread the word about the program in classrooms, and students would be able to visit the Earn & Learn office to work on their applications in person. The program’s critical fundraising months were cut short, too, impacting the amount of money available to pay students.
Still, McMurtry said students shouldn’t despair if finding a job is more difficult than before. He compared pandemic job searching to shopping for a special deal on a pair of pants that fit just right.
“You might have to go to through every single item on that rack,” he said, “to find what you’re looking for.”
“You’re told in high school and middle school that if you go to college, you’re going to have opportunities lined up for you. But when the whole world shuts down, those opportunities diminish, and you kind of feel swindled in a way.” Mikayla Gilbert Doing virtual internship with The Commons after her marketing internship fell through