Students' Summer Jobs
 Typical Summer Job |
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As many as 479 students from all the three participating schools took part in the summer job survey launched last spring. The Finns answered the questionnaire the last thing in spring and both PHS and OHG students right after the summer holiday.
Of these 479 students 191 students have had summer jobs. In each country girls seemed to have had more summer jobs than boys and equally in each country it's the parents who have in one way or another affected the chances of getting jobs either by employing their youngsters themselves or arranging their children to be employed by the company where they themselves work.
Of the 191 students who had summer jobs 148 had liked working, the reasons being: easy job, nice people, knew the employers, easy money, different. The ones who didn't like working gave comments like: too long working hours, low pay, boring, tiring, working inside, co-workers looked down on the summer workers.
97 worked for seven or more weeks and age wasn't a major point in this there being students from 15 to 18 years of age. The majority worked 2-4 weeks relaxing the rest of the holiday. Even Finns who have the longest summer holiday. Working hours didn't vary between the three countries being mostly 6-8 hours. About half of the summer job holders were very satisfied with the pay they got but 16-17-year-old boys in Finland were the most critical about the issue and had the most "bad salary" answers but a great majority thought that the atmosphere in their jobs was nice and good. Most of the students who said they had summer jobs also seemed to have some temporary jobs during the term time. The money that students earned by working was saved for furture purposes in 113 cases, no big changes between countries. Finns need the money for driving licences and schoolbooks whereas the Scottish and German students have more varied targets for their earnings.
The range of jobs students have is very large and just about any job was included. As to the reasons why students want to have summer jobs the most important reason for the students is to get some money of their own but getting work experience came second. Even students whose summer holidays are shorter than that of the Finns also mentioned that summer jobs are good because they prevent holiday time from getting too boring and that they give opportunities to have some time away from home and gain independence.
Finally, the questionnaire showed that very small differences exist between the three schools' students' opinions about summer- and/or term time working. We are in the same boat!
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