MEMPHIS, Tenn. — More than 6,700 teens and adults applied to take part in the city’s MPLOY youth summer program.
With so many applicants, the city is making changes to the requirements.
“We had no idea that it would be this type of response by the deadline which is April 4th, we’ll probably have right at 10,000,” James Nelson, the director of youth services, said.
Only 1,000 young people will be chosen for the MPLOY youth program in Memphis giving them soft skills training.
Nelson says at first 14- to 21-year-olds were required to attend a youth empowerment symposium by April 10.
“There’s no way for us to do enough youth empowerment symposiums within that deadline and then have the lottery on April 15,” he said.
Participants will be chosen through a lottery process. If they make it through the lottery, they will be required to attend a youth empowerment symposium if they didn’t attend one already.
“Just to make it fair for every applicant, as soon as we opened up the empowerment symposium online they were sold out within 15 minutes,” Nelson said.
Nelson says the overwhelming response says a lot about the number of people who want to work.
“The need is great, we know the need is great, not only with the young people but also with adults, we just saw yesterday that Bass Pro that 5,000 people showed up for 600 jobs,” he said.
Nelson says he hopes the city can double the number of applicants considered for these jobs in the future.
For more information about MPLOY, click here.