Fast-food restaurant owner can’t find teenagers to fill jobs

Taco John’s franchise owner Tamra Kennedy explains why she’s struggling to find teenagers to work at her fast food restaurants.

Far fewer teens are working now than they did 20 years ago, according to the U.S. Labor Department, which reported almost 60% of teens had a job in 1979 compared to 34% in 2015.

For some teens, it’s due to a lack of transportation and reluctance to obtain a driver’s license and for others it’s generally an affluence issue, according Tamra Kennedy, who runs several Taco John’s restaurants in the Midwest.

“We worked hard as a generation to earn the things that we have and we want to pass that on to the next generation,” Kennedy told Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co.” on Wednesday.

Even so, Kennedy said she’s having difficulties finding teenagers to fill jobs at her fast-food franchises, and is putting the onus on the fast-food industry to fix the problem.

“We have a PR problem in fast food,” she said. “We need to up our game and do a better job talking about why taking a job in a restaurant is a good idea.”