Jeremy Tauri: Give school kids a job and a boost

School kids should get a job.

Youth employment is something that small businesses can help with.When I was in the fifth form - I think that's year 11 now - I was fortunate enough to be offered paid work.

The first job I had was delivering circulars to mailboxes in my hometown of Kaikohe. It was unsupervised hard work.

I delivered 1500 weekly, in rain or hot sun, was often chased by dogs and in certain parts of the town had some pretty steep hills to bike up.

My next job was some after-school commercial cleaning rounds which then allowed me a reference to apply to Affco for holiday work.

Back then it seemed quite easy as a youth to find work. Most of the work I was doing was low skilled and I didn't trade the money for grades. I still maintained school as the choice for my future. But the encouragement of my parents helped and the income was useful for pocket money and future study.

It does not seem to be the same for young people coming into the workforce now.

Youth employment was seriously affected after the global financial crisis. Youth employment dropped from 58 per cent to 49 per cent between 2007 and 2012.

We're seeing it rise steadily but only back to 52 per cent so far.

Youth employment is something that small businesses can help with. It is not just cafes and the retail sector who can offer work but other occupations such as accountants, lawyers and other trades.

A while back I looked around our office at 3pm and noticed a few spare PCs. So we now we have a few kids working in the afternoons doing office scanning and some data collation. We celebrate their efforts at performance review time and its worth seeing the changes they're making in our business.

It's quite funny to think that the kid delivering the circulars, cleaning an office or cleaning up at Affco can then become the guy with an accounting business and a column.

If you take a few kids on in your business you never quite know what their path will be in the future. The few hours work you're offering you will have helped them get started on their way.