With summer here, schools are now on hiatus for vacation in most places around the country and teenagers are scurrying to find temporary jobs to earn some extra money. With that in mind, some parents may be interested to know that the National Consumers League (NCL) has once again selected their Five Worst Teen Jobs that teenagers are advised to avoid at all possible costs.
With the help of the Child Labor Coalition, the League bases its rankings on government statistics, reports from state labor officials and news accounts of injuries and deaths.
Parents living in the heartland of America may be particularly interested to know that an agriculture job tops the list for the third consecutive year.
According to the League, here are the Five Worst Teen Jobs in 2009:
5. Landscaping, grounds keeping and lawn service
4. Door-to-door sales
3. Driving forklifts, tractors and ATVs
2. Construction, especially at heights
1. Crop harvesting
Just how dangerous are these jobs? Well, here’s a quote from NCL’s website, which includes a complete analysis for each of the Five Worst Teen Jobs:
“… (in the US) a worker under 18 dies every ten days. In 2006, there were an estimated 52,600 work-related injuries and illnesses among youth 15 to 17 years of age requiring treatment in hospital emergency departments — that’s a hospital visit every 10 minutes for a teen worker.”
By the way, the League also took the liberty of including a “Bonus Worst Teen Job” this year. Their dubious selection for this category was “working in illegal meatpacking plants.” Call me crazy, but doesn’t this selection fall squarely into the duh! category?
Of course, this got me to thinking. I would be doing my readers a disservice if I failed to include several other “Bonus Worst Teen Jobs” of my own (obvious as they may be) that I believe the NCL has egregiously managed to overlook. 
And so, parents, it is probably best if your teens also stay away from these extremely dangerous summer jobs as well:
- Tornado Storm Chaser Intern
- Police Explorer Cadet: Bomb Squad Division
- Apprentice line cook for Chef Gordon Ramsey
I’m sure I’m overlooking a few others. Let me know if you think of anything else. 
In the meantime continue to encourage your kids to look for a summer job. Just make sure they stay away from the local meatpacking plant.
If you liked this article, please be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed!
Subscribe to Len Penzo dot Com!
via Email 
Forklifts okay. Working at a construction site on a tall building seems a bit dangerous too. But mowing lawns and picking strawberries? Crop dusting maybe. But not crop harvesting.
To me, working with Ramsey seems like the most dangerous job of them of all!
Wheezer,
Ramsey definitely is the worst job of the bunch! Woe to the sous chef that has trouble properly cooking a trout. lol
That guy just cracks me up: “Shut it down, you donkeys!”
Len
[...] were also other posts related to jobs and internships. This is such an important topic right now so hopefully these articles will be useful for [...]