Heather Kopp feels lucky that her 8 years of competitive swimming helped her land a summer lifeguarding job.

It will be the 16-year-olds first experience as an employee, working for the Anderson Park Department supervising swimmers at South Side Pool.

“That way I don’t sit in the house this summer and get bored,” she said before planting flowers at the pool in preparation of its opening early next month.

But Heather said her friends trying to find their own summer work experience, at say restaurants or retail stores, are being passed over in favor of adults going after the same jobs.

And, with Athletic Pool closed this summer for renovations, the Parks Department has done less summer hiring than in past years.

“We just don’t have enough positions for the applications we get,” said Rodney Chamberlain, the department’s superintendent for recreation.

Across the county, summer job opportunities have been declining since 1999, the last year Congress appropriated funding for summer jobs, said Mark Scharnowske, execuitve director for JobSource in Anderson.

Locally, some of that money helped support as many as 500 seasonal jobs, he said, and a county unemployment rate over 7 percent is increasing the competition for work even further.

“If an employer has a need for some summer help, the teens are competing against heads of households who are looking for work,” Scharnowske said.

More teenagers looking for fewer summer jobs are making a noticeable difference at companies where hiring seasonal workers in a annual process, like at Frazier’s Dairy Maid, the popular Anderson ice cream joint.

“There’s a lot more kids to pick from,” said owner Brian Frazier. “Especially with the minimum wage going up, I know a lot of the bigger companies refuse to hire those people now.”