On the first day of searching for her first summer job, Gionne Doss learned just how competitive this summer job season is going to be.

Doss, 16, a 10th–grader at Renaissance High School in Detroit, filled out seven job applications at stores at Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn recently. Her dream job, she says, is working at Foot Locker or another athletic footwear retailer.

Walking into her eighth store, Forever 21, a retailer that carries young women's clothing, Doss shyly approached Cory Hale, an 18–year–old sales associate.

"Are you hiring?" she asked Hale in a quiet voice.

Hale directed her to the front counter to fill out an application. The store has been inundated already with 250 applications from other high school students looking for work as schools across metro Detroit break for summer recess in the coming weeks.

Michigan employers say they'll first pick teens who are persistent, enthusiastic, willing to work weekends and continue jobs into the school year.

The Michigan Department of Career Development forecasts this will be the second consecutive tough summer for high school students looking for work.

High school students face a challenging job market for several reasons.

They've been pushed to the back of the line, forced to compete with college students and adults looking for work as the economy shed nearly 2 million jobs since March 2001. And the industries where teens are most likely to find work –– tourism, retail and manufacturing –– were hardest hit after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and have yet to fully rebound.

The Department of Career Development projects that the unemployment rate for those 16 to 19 will rise slightly to 19.8 percent, worse than last summer's 19.3 percent and more than double the 9.6 percent rate of 2000.

It's also nearly three times the jobless rate for the overall Michigan workforce. That rose to 6.7 percent in March, compared with 3.4 percent in 2000. Nationally, the unemployment rate hit 6 percent in April, the worst in eight years.

"Businesses are, if anything, a bit harder hit and more cautious in terms of extending job offers," says David Littmann, chief economist for Comerica Bank.

Comerica's quarterly Michigan Tourism Index, which reflects the health of the industry, has continued to fall since 9/11.

The rate was 111.2 in the final quarter of 2002, lower than it was in the final quarter of 2001, immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

The index, which looks at air travel, museum visits and hotel occupancy across Michigan, uses a baseline figure of 100 to represent where the industry stood in 1992.

Lackluster sales and retailers closing stores, including Kmart Corp., which shut 600 stores and shed 67,000 retail workers nationwide, have caused the number of retail jobs to fall by about 200,000 in the last year to 23.1 million workers.

At Forever 21, for example, 25 workers will be hired this summer, compared with 50 last summer, says store manager Sherrita Wright. Workers make between $5.15 and $7.50 an hour.

In a tough economy, those who have jobs are staying put.

Ed Miller, operations manager for the Olga's Kitchen chain, says he's noticed less turnover among adult workers at its 25 company–owned restaurants in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.

Mothers with small children aren't taking the summer off the way they used to, leaving fewer opportunities for teen workers, he says. The chain's company–owned stores will hire 100 teen workers this summer, about half the number from past years.

"It's kind of an employer's market," Miller says. "So we can afford to pick and choose."

As companies cut back on college internship programs because of the battered economy, undergraduates are fighting with high schoolers for the shrinking pool of jobs, says Phil Gardner, director of Michigan State University's Collegiate Employment Research Institute.

As if that weren't bad enough, high school students can expect to make about the same, or in same cases less, than they did last summer.

The most recent data from the Michigan Department of Career Development show, for example, that the average wage for a grocery store worker in the state rose only slightly to $9.11 an hour in March from $8.89 in March 2002.

The average wage for workers in the amusement and recreation services industry dipped to $11.20 an hour from $11.83 a year ago.

How to succeed

Teens need to present a neat and clean appearance, avoid body jewelry, be enthusiastic and willing to work weekends and once school starts if they want to improve their chances of getting a job.

They also need to start their job search early.

Carla Hudson's 14–year–old son Nicholas, an eighth–grader at Warren Woods Middle School in Warren, started calling about a job at the Palladium 12 movie theater in Birmingham in March.

"I wouldn't wait until school is out," says Hudson, a project assistant at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. "That's when the majority of people are going to start."

Jean Nicole Leonard, who works at Forever 21, is one teen who's beaten the odds of landing a job.

Leonard, a 17–year–old senior at Renaissance High School in Detroit who will attend the University of Nevada–Las Vegas this fall, has worked at the store for 13 months.

Having a job has helped Leonard use her own earnings for senior year activities –– her high school prom, a class trip to Cedar Point and airfare for a spring break trip to Orlando with her family.

"If I didn't have a job, my parents would have had to pay for this," Leonard says. "I want to be independent, to prepare for what it's like to be a grown–up."

Leonard's coworker LaTrese Brown, 20, of Inkster, is a retail veteran.

Brown, who will graduate in June from Robichaud High School in Dearborn Heights, works 20 to 25 hours a week at Forever 21 and 10 to 15 hours a week at Fashion Bug in Dearborn.

Her goal is to help pay for her education at Focus: HOPE, a Detroit civil and human rights organization that trains people for jobs in the auto industry, and to savefor a car.

"I really want a blue 2003 Monte Carlo, but that's later on," Brown says, threading a plastic claim check through her fingers at her post outside the fitting rooms at Forever 21 on a recent Tuesday night. The car's base sticker price is $21,770.

Brown says teens should not get discouraged in their job search. She applied to 30 stores before getting a call.

Focus on the future

Teens say that joining the work world can have benefits beyond a paycheck.

It can also give them a greater appreciation for managing their money.

Samantha Farr, a sophomore at West Bloomfield High School, started work in April as a hostess and cashier at Olga's Kitchen in West Bloomfield.

Farr, 16, looks at spending differently now that she's parting with her own money instead of her parents' cash. "I try to find things on sale instead of grabbing the first thing I see," she says. "I'm learning to budget my money better."

If teens keep their eyes and ears open they can use their job experience to learn about future careers.

Just ask Hale, who works at Forever 21 as a sales associate.

Hale will graduate in June from Detroit's Henry Ford High School. He'll start this fall at Wayne State University, where he'll study business administration.

He hopes to own his own store one day. "It started from working here," Hale says, looking around the store swirling with customers. "I really found my passion for retail."

Meanwhile, Doss, the Renaissance High School senior looking for a job, isn't thinking that far ahead. She just wants a job this summer.

"There's a lot of competition out there," she said. "People say they just hired somebody. But I'm not discouraged. I know I'll find a job."

Contact GARY HABER at 313–222–6159 or haber@freepress.com