Jobs You Can Get at 14 in Georgia: Permits, Hours, and Pay

At 14, you can work a fairly wide range of entry-level jobs in Georgia — grocery bagger, retail cashier, fast-food counter worker, office assistant, tutor, peer counselor, and light yard help are all on the table. The catch is that the state uses an approved list: if a job or task isn’t specifically on it, it’s off-limits. You also need a free youth work permit before your first shift, and your hours are capped so work doesn’t cut into school. The jobs you can get at 14 in Georgia are real jobs with real paychecks, but the rules around them are strict.

Jobs on Georgia’s Approved List

Georgia’s Commissioner of Labor publishes the list of occupations open to 14- and 15-year-olds, and anything not on that list is automatically prohibited.¹ The approved categories cover most of the jobs teens actually apply for:

Office and clerical work: filing, data entry, answering phones, and operating standard office machines like copiers and computers.¹
Retail sales: cashiering, price marking, assembling orders, stocking shelves, bagging groceries, and carrying out customer orders.¹
Food service: taking orders, clearing tables, and operating dishwashers, toasters, microwave ovens (limited to warming prepared food below 140°F), coffee machines, and similar low-risk kitchen devices.¹
Creative and intellectual work: tutoring, computer programming, writing software, performing music, drawing, and serving as a peer counselor or teacher’s assistant.¹
Grounds maintenance: yard cleanup, vacuuming, and floor waxing, but no power-driven mowers, cutters, trimmers, or edgers.²

In practice, most 14-year-olds in Georgia end up as grocery baggers, fast-food counter workers, retail cashiers, or office assistants. Those roles all sit inside the approved categories, though the employer still has to make sure the specific tasks you’re assigned stay on the list.

Jobs and Tasks You Cannot Do

Because the approved list is a whitelist, everything outside it is prohibited. Federal rules layer in specific bans, and Georgia follows them.² The main things you can’t do at 14:

Work in manufacturing, mining, processing plants, or construction sites.³
Operate power-driven machinery like circular saws, band saws, or wood chippers.³
Use ladders, scaffolds, or similar elevated equipment.³
Cook with commercial fryers (unless they have automatic basket-lowering devices), rotisseries, pressurized equipment, or high-temperature devices; run power-driven food slicers, grinders, or bakery mixers.²
Work in or around boiler or engine rooms.³
Work in meat-packing or meat-processing areas, or use power slicers or grinders on meat.³

Door-to-Door Sales Are Off the Table

One prohibition catches families by surprise. At 14 or 15, you can’t do door-to-door sales, street-corner sales, or any selling at locations away from the employer’s place of business. Federal regulations call this “youth peddling” and ban it outright, including loading and unloading sales kits and getting transported to sales areas.⁴ Selling on the employer’s own property, such as at a garden center or a parking-lot sale, is allowed, and unpaid volunteer fundraising for a charitable organization is also fine.

How Many Hours You Can Work

Georgia uses the federal “3-18-8-40” framework, which changes depending on whether school is in session:⁵

Up to 3 hours on a school day.
Up to 18 hours in a school week.
Up to 8 hours on a non-school day.
Up to 40 hours in a non-school week (summer, holidays).

Clock times matter too. During the school year, you can’t work before 7:00 a.m. or after 7:00 p.m. From June 1 through Labor Day, the evening cutoff extends to 9:00 p.m. Anyone under 16 also can’t work during normal school hours unless they’ve finished high school or been formally excused from attendance by their local school board.⁵

Note that neither Georgia nor federal law requires an employer to give you meal or rest breaks. If your employer chooses to offer short breaks of 5 to 20 minutes, federal law treats that time as paid; meal periods of 30 minutes or more where you’re fully off duty do not have to be paid.⁶

Getting Your Youth Work Permit

Every minor under 16 in Georgia needs a youth work permit — officially, an employment certificate — before starting a job. It’s free, it’s handled online through the Georgia Department of Labor, and it takes three steps.

Step 1: You Fill Out the Minor’s Section

Go to the Georgia Department of Labor’s online work permit portal and complete the minor’s section with your date of birth, school enrollment, and identifying information. The system then generates a 10-digit Minor Security Key (MSK) that ties your application to the next steps.⁷ Print the confirmation and give the MSK to your prospective employer.

Step 2: Your Employer Completes Their Section

The employer uses your MSK to log into the portal and enter their business information and your intended work schedule, which is how they acknowledge the legal limits on your hours and duties.⁷

Step 3: The Issuing Officer Signs Off

Take your MSK and a certified copy of your birth certificate to the issuing officer at your school. They review everything and print the work permit. Your employer has to keep a copy at the worksite for as long as you’re employed there.⁷

If you’re homeschooled, there’s no school issuing officer. Email a certified copy of your birth certificate, your Intent to Home School form, and your MSK to the Georgia Department of Labor’s Child Labor Unit at childlabor@gdol.ga.gov, and the department handles the permit directly.⁸

What You’ll Be Paid

Georgia’s state minimum wage is $5.15 per hour, but that only applies to the small number of employers not covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Most Georgia employers fall under federal jurisdiction and have to pay at least $7.25 per hour.⁹

There’s one wrinkle for young workers. The FLSA lets an employer pay a youth minimum wage of $4.25 per hour to employees under 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days on the job. After those 90 days pass — counted by calendar, not by workdays — the full $7.25 rate kicks in.¹⁰ Not every employer uses the lower rate, so it’s worth asking during the interview.

Working for a Parent’s Business

Federal law makes an exception when the business is entirely owned by your parents. A minor of any age can work for a parent-owned business without the usual occupation restrictions, as long as the work isn’t in manufacturing, mining, or any occupation the U.S. Secretary of Labor has declared hazardous.¹¹ So a 14-year-old can help run a parent’s shop, restaurant, or small office, but hazardous tasks like operating power-driven equipment stay off-limits.

If an employer starts assigning you prohibited tasks, scheduling you outside legal hours, or putting you to work without a valid permit on file, you or a parent can file a complaint with the Georgia Department of Labor or the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

1
Georgia Department of Labor. Georgia Laws and Rules Regulating Employment of Children
2
Georgia Department of Labor. Child Labor Hazardous Occupations
3
U.S. Department of Labor – Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor. Prohibited Occupations for Non-Agricultural Employees
4
eCFR. Part 570 Child Labor Regulations, Orders and Statements of Interpretation
5
Georgia Department of Labor. Child Labor Work Hour Restrictions
6
U.S. Department of Labor. Breaks and Meal Periods
7
Georgia Department of Labor. Completing an Employment Certificate – Youth Work Permit – for Minors Under Age 16 – Instructions for Minors
8
Georgia Department of Labor. Completing an Employment Certificate – Youth Work Permit – Issuing Officers Instructions – Online System
9
U.S. Department of Labor. State Minimum Wage Laws
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #32 – Youth Minimum Wage – Fair Labor Standards Act
11
U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #43 – Child Labor Provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act