The SF Youth Commission recently released the results from the Fall 2009 YouthVote. These results indicate that youth in San Francisco are motivated to learn about work, are stresed about job and money issues, and have a diversity of career interests.
The purpose of YouthVote is to get input from high school students about their experiences living and going to school in San Francisco. By surveying students on relevant issues, the Youth Commission ensures that youth can provide substantive feedback regarding their needs and can share possible solutions to issues that impact them. The Youth Commission, Student Advisory Council, and other organizations use the survey results to help them make important policy, programmatic, and budgetary recommendations on behalf of youth.
This year, 8,821 students responded to the survey, which included questions about school issues, stress and violence, extra-curricular priorities and career interests.
These survey results had a lot to say about youth employment and career development:
- 51.8% of high school youth chose “Finding a Job / Internship” as their top priority for extra-curricular activities and 40.2% of high school youth chose “Learning job skills.”
- 68% of youth identified “Job / money problems” as very stressful or somewhat stressful factors in their lives.
- The top three career interests of SF high school youth are: Healthcare (28.2%), Business / Finance (25.5%), Information Technology / Digital Media (23.8%).
YouthWorks interns supported the Youth Commission in the significant task of compiling over 8,000 surveys to arrive at these results.