TEMPS FOR TEENSWHAT: A collaboration between the City of Chattanooga and the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce to provide hard and soft job training for unemployed Chattanooga teens.Contact: Interested parties should contact Angela Daniels, Youth and Family Development career development coordinator at 423-643-6804 or Brian Smith at 423-643-6096, smith_br@chattanooga.gov.
It’s Friday afternoon, and three Chattanooga teenagers – Jay Watkins, Kayla Wells and Christine Montgomery – know the score.
Trying to find a job in this city, in this economy — it’s hard. It can be exhausting, discouraging and frustrating.
The U.S. ureau of Labor Statistics reports that in April the national unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds was 17.7 percent — nearly triple the average adult rate last month of 6.3 percent.
A recent study by the Brookings Institute showed that only one in four of those age 16 to 19 in Chattanooga had jobs in 2012, or only half the share of similar-age workers with jobs in Chattanooga in 2000.