Slower business poses problem for owners, student job hunters

When students leave for home in the summer, they take all their spending money with them. This temporary economic vacuum leaves a problem for business owners and student job seekers alike each summer.

“Summer gets especially slow the closer you get to campus,” said Neil Thompson, a night manager at the Jimmy Johns store located on 10th Street. “Some stores even change their hours depending on where they are in town.”

Thompson said hours were dramatically reduced at his store, located across the street from Eigenmann Residence Center, during the summer, with some employees only working fractions of the hours they worked during the year.

When restaurants and retail stores have to cut back, it means fewer job opportunities for those few students who stay and have to pay rent and utilities.

“I think because a lot of the businesses aren’t making their means up right now with the economic downturn, they don’t have enough income to cover the staff they would normally have,” senior and current job seeker Robert Ellis said.

He added that of the 28 businesses he’s applied to, many of them have been “cutting existing positions and giving more hours to fewer staff.”

“Going in and trying to find a job at this point means the deck is already stacked against you,” Ellis said.

Summer residents find they have to keep an open mind in terms of types of jobs and numbers of hours given for any opportunity that comes their way.

Recently employed senior Benjamin St. John said the only job he could not do was delivery or one out of walking distance, for one simple reason: He does not have a car.

St. John said he thinks the reasons students have such difficulty finding jobs is that employers will keep people who already worked for them during the year and might also want to hire Bloomington residents.

“During summer, some people go home,” St. John said, “but the ones that stay usually keep their jobs if they already work there. So you have people who have already had experience working a job, along with Bloomington residents, to compete with.”

However, some workplaces will take advantage of students leaving to help cut back on summer hours and take them back when fall comes.

Melanie Griffith, a manager at T.I.S. College Bookstore, said the summer downturn is no different to them than the lack in business they see between the book rushes every semester.

“In summer we still have summer semesters and orientation, so business stays pretty steady,” Griffith said. “We always have something going on.”

Ellis has made some progress in the job hunt, but he has found nothing concrete yet.
“It’s looking up, but I’m not going to be off-edge until I’ve found a place,” Ellis said. “I actually had to drop a summer course in order to save money, and if I don’t get a job in the next month, I’m going to have to sell my car to make rent.”