City, county welcome summer interns

Published 12:00 am Monday, July 9, 2012

It’s the fourth year of on-the-job training for at-risk students

Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith welcomed around 145 high school students to summer internships with Portland and the county Monday morning.

“We all benefit when young people are productive and contributing to society,” Smith told the students, who gathered in the auditorium of the downtown Portland Building before going to their jobs.

The internships are offered by SummerWorks, a joint program of the city, the county, the Portland Pubic School Foundation and Worksystems Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to enhance the regional workforce. SummerWorks is part of the Youth Summer Connect initiative that identifies students at risk of dropping out of school and offers them academic and other support to help them graduate.

“These summer jobs are important to help prepare students for the future,” said Smith.

Summer Youth Connect was started by Mayor Sam Adams, who could not attend the gathering because of illness. In a prepared statement, Adams said, “A first job is an important step to long-term employment, and lifelong prosperity and stability—which is, in turn, great for our city.”

This is the fourth year of the summer internship program. According to Worksystems’ Executive Director Andrew McGough, they are especially important now because youth unemployment is so high.

“We are in the midst of a youth employment crisis that makes this program more important than ever,” said McGough. “The recession’s impact on youth is clear, and it is not pretty. During the past three years, overall private-sector payroll jobs for all ages declined by 9.6 percent. Hardest hit, and by a large margin, were teen workers who saw their job numbers fall by 46 percent. Those in the next oldest age group, 19 to 21 years experienced the second largest decline, down 20.4 percent.”

Related programs include Ninth Grade Counts, which identifies at-risk students entering the ninth grade, and Career + College Connections, which helps students prepare to apply for college. Most of this year’s interns have been through both of those programs.

Adams office says the internships are funding with a combination of city, county and federal Workforce Investment Act funds. In general, a $2,000 sponsorship leverages $1,000 in WIA funds to support screening process, work-readiness training and ongoing job coaching.

Ninety-five of the interns have summer jobs in city agencies. They are: the Office of Management and Finance; the Bureau of Environmental Services; the Portland Police Bureau; the Auditor’s Office; the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability; Portland Parks & Recreation; the Portland Bureau of Transportation; the Water Bureau; the Portland Development Commission; Portland Fire & Rescue; the Portland Children’s Levy; Human Resources Bureau; the Bureau of Development Service; the Revenue Bureau; Procurement, Printing & Distribution Bureau; Fleet Management Bureau; and the Office of Neighborhood Involvement.

Fifty interns have jobs with the county, twice as many as last year. They are working at six departments and 28 divisions, in addition to eight SUN school sites and four members of the County’s Business Advisory Council.

Other governments offering jobs include Metro and the City of Beaverton. A number of non-profit organizations are also offering internships, including Loaves & Fishes and Home Forward, formerly called the Housing Authority of Portland. And an addition 57 interns have summer jobs with private businesses, ranging from Boeing to Pacific Power and Wells Fargo.