PART TIME JOBS AMONG YOUTHS

Part time jobs among youths

It’s becoming more and more casual for youths to have a job in addition to going to school. We wanted to compare part time working among students at Vennesla Secondary School (VSS) with the national average. To obtain the needed information, we did a survey. By doing this, we found out how many students that had a part time job, what they worked with, why they worked etc.

We compared the data we got from the survey with the survey from other schools all over the country. Below you will find numbers and information concerning part time jobs among students at Vennesla Secondary School compared with part time working students across Norway.

Our survey showed that roughly half of the students at VK1 had a part time job. A survey done across Norway shows that the national average of youths in part time jobs between the age of 16 to 19 is ca. 35%. This shows that part time jobs are considerably more common at Vennesla Secondary School than in the rest of the country.

Of the students that attended our survey, 54% of the girls had a part time job while 50% of the boys worked beside school. The difference between boys and girls was smaller then what we expected. We thought more girls than boys would have a job because of the expenses regarding cloths and make-up.

77% of the boys we asked worked in an industrial company. Most of them in a store and within production. 15% worked in the public, mostly within technical work, while only 15% worked for private people. The survey showed that 9% of the girls worked for private people and 72% in an industrial company, of them mostly in a store. 19% of he girls worked in the public. Most of them concerning health care. The results we got was pretty much what we had expected. This because the majority of the students worked in a store.

In the survey we also obtained information regarding how many hours they worked per week. These results showed that a vast majority (45%) worked more than 8 hours per week. 39% worked between 4 and 6 hours per week, while only 16% worked one to three hours per week. The differences between boys and girls are here quite large. None of the boys worked 1 to 3 hours, 50% worked 4 to 7 hours and the other half worked more than 8 hours.

About 25% of the girls worked 1 to 3 hours, 30% 4 to 7 hours, while the rest worked more than 8 hours per week.

Despite the fact that the students work a lot, 80% denies that their work, effect their schoolwork. Among the few that were of the opinion that their work effected their school performance, the majorities were boys. This could be connected to the fact that boys work more hours. When it comes to having a contract, only 30% had a written contract and 23% an oral contract. In conclusion, about one half work without contract. We have discovered that part-time working students earn pretty well. Almost 50% earn more than 70 NOK an hour. Only 3% earn between 30 NOK and 50 NOK an hour. There were no big differences regarding pay between boys and girls.

We interviewed some of our follow-students the reasons why they work or why they didn’t. The main reasons why the students didn’t work were that they didn’t bother, didn’t have time to it, wanted to prioritise school and that work is to much pressure. The students that worked told us that they needed the money. Those who didn’t work got their money at home.

Conclusion: It’s important to point out that a huge majority of the students attending in our survey had a part-time job. Out of this we can raise the question: why do students at VSS work more than the national average? Don’t the parents have enough money to support their children, or do the students at VSS need more money compared with students other places in Norway?

This project was prepared by: Kristin Myrvold, Steinar Heggland, Anne Hjelleset, Anne Siri Skomedal, Kari Telstoe and Marianne Voreland.

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