If you plan to hire someone under 18 this summer, you may have an easier time of it. The Indiana Dept. of Labor has adopted a new permit system called YES, the Youth Employment System. It means, beginning July 1, someone under 18 can be hired on the spot.

“Effective July 1, Indiana will be replacing the work permit process that has been in place for so many years,” said Mike Myers, director of Youth Employment at the Indiana Department of Labor, in a conference call Tuesday. “We’re replacing that with a new youth employment system, or what we call YES.”

Myers explained that while schools previously kept track of people under 18 who were employed, that will no longer be the schools’ responsibility.

“This requirement now shifts responsibility of the tracking and reporting of minor employers to Indiana employers who employ five or more minors,” said Myers.

e said the permits and registration for those permits will be accomplished simply, on a cell phone, within minutes.

“Rather than having to send the minor in to go get a permit and wait a day or two or three for them to come back with that work permit,” he said, “now they can interview, they can make the decision to hire and they can register in less than two minutes and they can have that employee on the line working right then and there.”