Temptation for young to earn money should be resisted

A lot of attention has been given, rightly, to increased full-time employment and the reduction of the unemployment rate to a level of about 6 per cent. The number of people in full-time employment has risen by 197,000 since 1995, from 1.128 million to 1.325 million now, an increase of 17 per cent.

The story of the Irish economy in the coming five years will also be dominated by the story of employment and the changing make-up of the labour force.

An even more remarkable change has occurred in relation to part-time employment. As thousands of parents of second-level students know, and all supermarket shoppers, pub-goers, petrol station users and fast-food buyers know, there has been a large increase in part-time work being done by school students.

The figures compiled for the Labour Force Survey, now the Quarterly National Household Survey, bear out the anecdotal evidence fully.

In 1995, 14,100 15-to-19-year-olds were in part-time employment. By the middle of this year, that figure had risen to 40,300, an increase of 185 per cent. In that period, the total number of people of all ages in part-time work rose from 154,000 to 266,500, an increase of 73 per cent. The rate of increase of 15-to-19-year-olds in part-time work is more than twice the rate applying to the general population. And these rates of increase dwarf the 17 per cent increase of people in full-time employment, while recognising that the increases are taking place off very different bases.

The reality as we see around us and in the figures is that a lot more school students are working. The question for parents is not, does the economy need my teenager to work? But rather, should my school-going son or daughter work, and why?

Everyone will pay homage to the idea that part-time work should not interfere with study, homework and the business of the day - education. And we also recognise that 15-to-19-year-olds have always worked a bit, often out of economic necessity. But economic necessity for families has not pulled 20,000 more youths into part-time employment in the last two years. Are they working for the good of learning about the real world, or for plain old consumption? And if it is just to buy more things, is that a good thing?

It is no use saying it to a 15-to-19-year-old, but there will be plenty of time to work later. While they can, they should minimise rather than maximise the time they spend working. There will be plenty of hard grind later.

I remember a guy in school in the 1970s who turned down the chance of going to university to take up a job as a bus conductor. The pay as a bus conductor was much better than penury in college. No doubt, young bus conductors like him enjoyed life earning, spending and perhaps saving money after discharging their low-skill duties on the buses. Now there is no such job as a bus conductor. In my own case, it took some years after college in a civil service job to earn as much as I did as a painter in summer work. To be fair, some of the 15-to-19-year-old, part-time workers are meeting the cost of living during college education and becoming less of a burden on their parents. But with the abolition of third-level fees, one of the traditional reasons for students working a lot is gone. This reasoning doesn't apply to school-going students, where the real problem with increased part-time work is.

The lure of cash now, of consumption no longer postponed, is strong. It is a problem if the attitude of work-now-for-consumption-now becomes dominant among under-20-year-olds. They need to invest fully in their future, both in formal education and also in the never-to-be repeated opportunity for leisure. There are some lessons from the US and Germany where some of the generation which grew up in economic good times ended up slack, consumerist, lacking in ambition and failing to achieve excellence, a disappointment to their parents.

The economy also needs younger people to invest fully in their future, more than it needs a temporary high demand for part-time work to be filled. Otherwise, the economy will have a less well-educated adult population with less potential for becoming a high-skilled economy. There are valid arguments about over-education for non-academically inclined students. Maybe, just maybe, it is good for some to learn work skills early. But the overriding need of students, the economy and society is for in-depth education as one basis for future prosperity. Parents and students, businesses and policymakers must not lose sight of that.

Oliver O'Connor is editor of the monthly publication, Finance. E- mail: ooconnor@indigo.ie