“The waitresses and the dishwashers got hit the most when they were let go because they couldn’t pay for bills due to the loss of income.”  Says junior Ryan Mink.

Due to COVID-19 spikes, students have gotten their place of work shut down for certain amounts of time, causing shifts in student’s lifestyles. Mink states that his weekends changed, and he did not know what to do during this time, he found himself “cleaning randomly around the house” to use up the extra time he had.

Mink had lost his job for five weeks and felt “sad because I no longer had an income, and I didn’t get to see my friend Nathan every week.” The income for Mink also changed when he got back to work because fewer people were coming to the place he worked, he received fewer tips. His income went from 110 dollars each week to 85-90 dollars.

“[My place of work] should not have been closed down because it’s their choice to come to our restaurant, if they came out during a pandemic, willing to risk getting COVID-19, that should be up to them. That also goes for workers, coming to work is their choice,” mentions Mink.

In restaurants that were closed, when they reopened, many added limited seating. The Delta Family Restaurant is one of these places, Mink says that there “should not be limited seating because it’s an airborne virus, the restaurant has good ventilation so it would spread just as easily if they were across the room versus right next to you.”

Some lost their jobs for good after being let go due to COVID-19, “someone got COVID-19 and they told me to stay out 14 days, and I did, but they then told me not to come back,” states junior, Josh Woods. This caused Woods to find a new job, and instead of the fast-food franchise, Woods said “now I’m at a retail job.”

According to CIDRAP, “The US jobs report for April brings sobering, if not unexpected news: The country has lost 20.6 million jobs since mid-March, resulting in an unemployment rate of 14.7%, a level not seen since the Great Depression in the 1930s.”

Young workers already have disadvantages when it comes to employment, says Elise Gould and Melat Kassa of the Economic Policy Institute, now with Covid-19 the unemployment rates for younger workers have jumped a considerable amount. Teens are also more prone to have jobs that are impacted the most by COVID-19, “About a quarter of young workers are employed in leisure and hospitality, where employment declined by 41% between February and May 2020,” mentions Gould and Kassa.