Youth

After sending out a flurry of resumes this spring, I was excited to be offered a job working as an expeditor at a local restaurant. My duties would involve preparing salads, stocking the salad bar, dressing plates and delivering meals, busing tables, and occasionally washing dishes.

AJ, 15, a student at Stephen Leacock Secondary School in Scarborough, Ontario, was one of the entrants in the MySafeWork essay contest; part of her essay is shown here:

Students at work continue to get injured on the job. There are many reasons for this happening. Some are not properly trained, some are not trained at all, some are careless, or they don't work in a safe environment.

Every year, approximately 200,000 teenagers in the United States are injured on the job, and about 70 teens are killed at work. Every six minutes, a teenager is injured seriously enough on the job to require treatment in a hospital emergency room.

Are these numbers acceptable to anyone? Solutions, anyone?

According to Mose Znamier, the new executive director of CARP, Baby Boomers - he calls them Zoomers (Boomers + Zip) - are not taking the off-ramp from work like their preceding generation did approaching 65.