Summer jobs can be dangerous for teens
| Updated: 6/25/2012 9:12 am |
Published: 6/22/2012 8:42 pm
|
According to the Child Labor Coalition, if your teen is working outside this summer he or she has a better chance of being injured on the job.
It's estimated this summer 200,000 kids will be hurt across the country while working, and 70 teens will lose their lives. Jasmine is 15-years old and, like most teens, she'd love to land an easy summer job. “The whole point is to have money and go shopping and buy unnecessary things,” she told FOX23 on Friday. Jasmine says getting a job is not as easy as it looks. “There are not really many choices, being a teen.” Those choices also might not be as safe as they look, so Oklahoma's Director of Child Labor is urging parents and teens to practice safety this summer.
According to the Child Labor Coalition the top five most dangerous jobs for teens are:
- Traveling youth sales crews
- Construction work
- Lawn and landscaping
- Anything agriculture related
- Forklift and other heavy machinery operators.
Superior Lawn in Tulsa has no problem hiring young workers. “If the maturity level is there, we figure they haven't been taught by anybody else yet. You can kind of mold them to the way superior lawn does stuff,” Raychel Rider with Superior Lawn told FOX23. If a teen wants to work at Superior Lawn, they don't get to use the big equipment right off the bat. “On our mowing crew, they're always out with the crew first, somebody that's been doing it a long time, got a lot of good employees who have been here a long time,” Rider said. Raychel says a lot of the safety briefings sound obvious, “not putting their hands in the blades, not doing anything, checking anything while the motors running and they're monitored extremely closely.” She says for young kids who've never worked a day in their lives, you have to say it, repeat it, and say it again. “Once you go out there and do it and you see it, repetition, repetition, I think that's what brings it all together.” Another thing experts encourage parents to do is to check out your child's work environment. They say you are probably a better judge about whether it's safe or not than they are.
Copyright 2012 Newport Television LLC All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
