More than a thousand teens applied to work a summer job for the city of Cincinnati last year, but only 6% were hired.
"There's clearly a market for youth employment in the city of Cincinnati ... but the gap between how many people apply and who we're able to hire is quite large," said Tim Heyl, division manager for the Cincinnati Recreation Commission, which operates the Y2WK (Youth To Work) program.
Y2WK primarily sends teens to work at city recreation centers and city pools. They also staff the cadet programs for the Cincinnati police and Cincinnati fire departments.
CRC plans to hire 250 teens across those three programs this summer; more than 600 people have already applied, with two more weeks left before the deadline.
Council member Anna Albi says she will advocate for more funding in the next city budget.
"As we as a city, more broadly, think about our violence reduction strategies and what safety looks like in our city for the summer, this is really a critical piece of it," Albi said.
Youth work funding challenges
The Y2WK program is funded through federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) through the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Officials say the amount of funding has gone down in recent years, but the timing of awards also complicates things. Last year, for example, awards were announced in spring but the money didn't come through until after summer. As a result, CRC started the hiring process later than usual and fell short of goals.
"It's hard for us to manage and promote and plan well when the funding is uncertain coming into the year," Heyl said.
The summer 2025 program ended up using unspent CDBG funds from the previous year, with a boost from another city youth employment program: the Career Pathways Initiative (CPI).
The summer 2026 program is fully funded thanks to leftover CDBG funds again, but after that, the future is unclear.
Heyl says even if the program got a large boost in funding, it would be difficult to find immediate placements because it takes time to develop appropriate jobs.
"We'd certainly be interested in expanding the program," he said. "We have not aggressively pursued more partnerships with city departments or outside vendors to place kids, just due to the uncertainty in funding at this point."
Separately, CPI launched in 2022 and focuses on career development for young people, separate from the temporary summer jobs from Y2WK.
CPI recruits young people for entry-level city jobs that only require a high school diploma or GED, like joining the academy for buildings and inspections inspectors. Applicants for that job have increased 385% since 2023:
- 2023: 140 applicants
- 2024: 179 applicants
- 2025: 679 applicants
Similar increases happened for applications for civil engineering in the Department of Transportation and Engineering, and for municipal workers — an entry-level job that funnels into jobs across many city departments.
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