Summer jobs offer incentives
Due to low employment numbers, students are offered incentives to work at summer campus jobs.
This summer, students may be provided with free on-campus summer housing or a $1,000 end of summer bonus if they work in a qualifying department through CSB/SJU Student Employment.
Currently, as of April 25, only 198 students are signed up to work on campus this summer. This number is significantly less than last year’s number of 422.
On April 21, Student Employment sent out an email saying that students can choose to receive one of these incentives if they work in one of the listed departments for at least 35 hours per week for 13 weeks.
Many positions are open and looking to be filled on both campuses. The incentives are being offered to students who will work in custodial, events/catering/conferences, grounds, Security & Life Safety, CSB maintenance, SJU recreation as lifeguards, SJU paint shop and IT Services.
“We decided to offer the free summer housing or $1,000 end of summer bonus incentives because of the large number of positions that remain unfilled for summer and the lack of applicants that we had to fill those positions, especially in the areas included in the incentive,” said Angie Mareck, director of student employment at SJU.
Mareck said that student employment has varied greatly over the last few years with COVID playing a major role in doing so.
“In spring 2020, departments were just filling summer positions when everyone got sent home, and like the rest of the world we waited to see what would happen. Most departments worked remotely that summer, and all on-campus summer events were cancelled.
“Most of the summer research and leadership fellow positions were able to work remotely, and some students who were living locally worked in-person,” Mareck said.
By summer of 2021, Mareck said on-campus events were still not scheduled, and most departments were operating with a hybrid setup.
Compared to summer of 2020, the number of students who worked on campus increased by summer of 2021, but there remained a great amount of uncertainty and less demand due to a lack of events.
According to data from Student Employment, during the first summer of COVID in 2020, 282 students worked on campus over the summer, a major decline from 507 students in 2019.
SJU junior Logan Gagnepain said that for students who find themselves working on campus over the summer when they have no other choice, incentives are helpful.
However, he believes that these benefits should be extended to student workers in all areas.
“The incentives themselves are remarkably good. I think that if people are going to be spending their time here over the summer, they should be given benefits,” Gagnepain said.
CSB junior Isabel Lesseig is impressed to see free summer housing being offered for so many jobs.
She says that such benefits are well-deserved for students who dedicate much of their summer to on-campus work.
“I think it’s a good incentive to get students to stay engaged with the campus over summer and also a good resource for students who might not have the best situation at home over the summer. I think a lot of people do make the choice to stay on campus for those reasons,” Lesseig said.
With various events happening on campus this summer, there is currently a high demand for student workers.
Mareck says that the chosen departments for receiving free on-campus housing and the end of summer bonus have a large number of positions to fill and are not getting enough applications.