Tracy Kovalench
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jul 10/98) - Come spring, dollars replace grades on many student's priority list, as pupils hit the pavement in search of work for the summer.

Lisa Dumond is an environmental sciences major, but like the majority of students home in Yellowknife for the summer, she has accepted a job outside her field.

Dumond works for Hire-A-Student, a federally- funded program designed to match local businesses and private homes with student help for the summer.

"We help anybody returning to school full-time," says Dumond, who has helped students ranging in age from 11 to 35 find jobs throughout the community, from babysitting to mowing lawns to full-term office positions.

Dumond maintains a database of potential student positions and looks after the student job board at the Department of Human Resources office. She also works with the GNWT student placement officer, Tasha Wasylkiw. Together, they have helped place 207 students in government departments across the city, according to figures released last month.

Although 80 new summer government positions were created this year, Dumond says she is worried about the apparent decrease of student jobs in the private sector.

In June, Dumond placed a little over half of the number of students she assisted last year.

She points to employment-damaging factors like a decrease of monetary circulation in the city's economy as well as fewer construction positions available this year.

With dozens of high- school students joining the workforce last month, the student unemployment rate has climbed dramatically. Dumond says she knows at least 50 job-seekers off the top of her head who are still looking for work.

Fed up with waiting around for a call that may never come, Dumond and a group of students have devised a temporary solution.

"We're taking matters into our own hands," she says. She is planning to help host a student-run car wash and barbecue tomorrow afternoon.

Eight young entrepreneurs will come together to scrub vehicles beside the Petro Canada gas station on Old Airport Road. Hotdogs and hamburgers will also be available for a low price, says Dumond, who hopes to see the community reach out to its students.

"It gives people the chance to come out and support youth," says Dumond.

Summer jobs give people the opportunity to go to school and bring back their education to the North, she adds.