- Teen workers in the Hamptons are booking jobs for $70 an hour as private sports instructors for kids.
- The same service also offers babysitting for up to $45 an hour, and chess lessons at $125 per hour.
- The network's 16-year-old founder says his prices are competitive with local professional services.
There's probably never been a better time to be a teen worker than the Summer of 2022, and there's likely nowhere quite like the Hamptons for young workers to earn big.
Amid an extreme labor shortage in the US, one networking site is connecting teen workers with families seeking babysitting services, sports instruction, and even chess lessons.
For 16-year-old Alex Bank, that means billing $70 an hour to teach basketball, or $25 an hour to look after a child, enabling him to bring home close to $600 per week, according to the New York Post.
Compared with his past summer job of bussing tables for $17 an hour, Bank told the Post his new gig is "a lot less stressful."
But Bank doesn't pocket all of his billings himself — 25% of his fee goes to Gabe Jaffe, also 16, who launched the Teen Hampton listing service earlier this summer after a year of recruiting and planning.
"It's what the market is willing to pay," Jaffe told Insider of the pricing strategy, "and the Hamptons is a market that's pretty detached from the rest of reality."
Even though professional athletic instruction from other companies in the area can easily cost double or triple the Teen Hampton rate, Jaffe said his clients like having younger instructors that their children can relate to more easily.
While the highest hourly rate on the site is $125 for private chess lessons from a two-time US champion instructor who earned a National Master rank by age 13, the demand is greatest for routine babysitting.
When the site first launched, the bookings for babysitters almost immediately filled up, Jaffe said. "We weren't expecting so many clients out of the gate."
Since then, more teens have signed up, available hours have increased as schools let out for the summer, and Jaffe says he's confident Teen Hampton will have enough babysitters to go around.
"We feel that in order for our business to succeed, we need our customers not only to like the quality of the service, but for their kids to really enjoy hanging out and having fun," Jaffe said.