"The Massachusetts miracle means it's been difficult recently to get people to fill this kind of a job," says Ric Finnegan '65-'76, manager of Paperback Booksmith on Brattle St., which has recently had trouble finding part-time sales help.
Joseph P. Devine, assistant manager of Broadway Supermarket, which employs about 50 workers, says the labor shortage has grown progressively more acute over the last three or four years, as the state unemployment rate dropped to its current 3 percent rate in the years after the economic recession of the early 1980s. Broadway has had to raise its starting salaries by as much as $2 an hour for some positions in recent months, he says.
Heroux says employers should not expect an easing of the labor shortage any time soon. He says the Chamber of Commerce is working with businesses to promote the employment of teenagers and other groups that are traditionally overlooked.
Meanwhile, for Harvard students looking for work, the situation couldn't be better.
About 75 percent of Harvard students hold jobs, according to the SEO. The rate of increase in salaries for student workers has outdistanced inflation in recent years, while roughly parallelling tuition increases, Homer says.
"There's a lot of opportunities," says Laurence L. Lee '92, who is seeking a job through the SEO. "I was really surprised by the diversity of jobs."
Job listings posted at the SEO range from dog walking ($5 an hour) to computer programming ($25 an hour) to the Calvin Klein modeling job ($250 a day, plus an all-expenses-paid trip to Florida). Many of the openings are for University jobs in the dining halls or on dorm crew. One of the most sought-after University positions is that of faculty aide, which may entail researching early film animation, quasars or "the incidence and pattern of romantic love" for $10 an hour.
Salaries for Harvard students are considerably higher than at almost all other colleges in the Boston area and around the country. According to statistics compiled last year by the New England Association of Student Employment Administrators, wages for on-campus jobs here surpass salaries at Boston University, Brandeis, UMass, and Princeton by as much as $2 an hour. Nearby MIT, however, offers pay roughly equal to Harvard's.
Many local employers say that students who know there is no shortage of available jobs are often unreliable workers. Mandis says she has hired several student workers who quit after several days or even failed to show up at all, apparently because they had found other jobs.
Despite the wide range of high-paying jobs available, many Harvard students pass up the cash in favor of public service or career-oriented work, Homer says. She says her office often encourages students to seek paid and volunteer internships in hospitals and community centers.