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Where Teens Want to Work

By Renée Ward, Founder, Teens4Hire.org
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Retail jobs beat out fast-food and restaurant jobs as the top choice among teens for employment, says Renee Ward, founder and executive director of Teens4Hire.org, a national online Career Center for employers and teens in the high school and college age groups.

Teens4Hire.org received more than 6,000 responses to a poll completed on its site of where teens would like to work. The Top 10 categories are:

# 1. Retail (27%)
# 2. Fast-food and/or restaurant (20%)
# 3. Arts, Entertainment, Media (9%)
# 4. Sports and Recreation (6%)
# 5. Health Services (5%)
# 6. Customer Service/Call Center (4%)
# 7. Education, Training, Library (3%)
# 8. Computer software (3%)
# 9. Office, clerical (2%)
# 10. Accounting (1%)

Potential employers should make a note of this. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey data, a majority of employers indicate that paid work experience and workplace mentoring, at 57 and 50 percent respectively, are the most effective means of addressing the skills gap issues within their industries.