School is out for summer and that means teens aren’t only looking forward to warmer weather and vacations, but also summer jobs.

And they’ll have plenty of company.

In 2021, 32% of teens ages 16 to 19 were participating in the nation’s workforce, while 39.6% of Colorado teens in that age group were part of the workforce, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Though not as robust as about 20 years ago, those figures are up from the pre-pandemic year of 2019.

At the same time, teens who are job hunting will find an employment scene that’s changed since the start of the pandemic, some experts and employers say; more businesses are aware of the need to provide meaningful work for teens, just as they’re doing for adult job seekers.

Even if their job is a short-term gig, some teens also will want a sense of community and growth in their lives, the experts and employers say.

Over the past 20 years, K-12 schooling became increasingly focused on academics, said Bob Gemignani, the director of the Pikes Peak Business & Education Alliance, a branch of the Pikes Peak Workforce Center that serves as a conduit between schools and local businesses to balance the demand for labor with the supply of talent available.

“The concept of student career development has taken a back seat in a lot of respects in most of our school systems,” Gemignani said.

“Our mission,” he added, is to connect K through 12 students’ talents, interests and aptitudes to the world of work in the Pikes Peak region, which includes El Paso and Teller Counties.”

Unlike previous generations, Gemignani said there’s now a broader range of careers available for teens to choose.

Plus, because of the impact of the pandemic, workers and businesses are more cognizant of “quality jobs” — ones that provides flexibility, work-life balance, healthy cultures and good wages, said Becca Tonn, communications manager for the Pikes Peak Workforce Center.

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While teens’ summer and high school jobs might not be the career avenue they follow long-term, it still gives them skills they’ll need in the workforce such as problem solving, conflict resolution and resiliency, Tonn said.

Josh & John’s Ice Cream, the longtime Colorado Springs-based ice cream shop that hires many teens around the area, seeks to grow those skills and help teens become leaders. 

“Being a leader is tough,” said Brian Ortiz, Josh & John’s human resources specialist. “They might have experienced being a leader in a school setting or in a club setting. But it’s different when you’re in charge of people.”

Ortiz started as an ice cream scooper at Josh & John’s when he was a teen. Now he’s a high school teacher and heads Josh & John’s worker training. He says the job landscape for teen workers changed since the pandemic’s start and that’s largely because workers themselves changed.

“Before, I think that high schoolers just wanted a job for the sake of just having a job,” Ortiz said. “I think that now…they want something that’s going to allow them to grow in some way that’s going to give them opportunities to do something, they want to know that they’re a part of something rather than just doing something for their own purpose.”

For Ramen Chops, a Chipotle-style ramen restaurant in Monument that employs a workforce made-up almost entirely of teens, building community is their mission.

Sarah Hoard, co-owner of the restaurant with her husband Mike, opened the shop so their kids would have a place to work.

“So that they can learn work ethic, how to serve and how to listen at a very young age,” Hoard said.

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When Ramen Chops first opened in April 2019 several of the employees were in their 20s and 50s but over time their applicants were overwhelmingly teens because younger workers would refer their friends to the restaurant, Hoard said.

“What we’ve learned with teens, if you hire them, is that they’re hungry to learn,” Hoard said. “We love the energy that they bring to the restaurant and we love that they’re never set in their ways.”

Jordan Garcia, 19, started working at Ramen Chops when it opened and left the store to start college but COVID-19 disrupted his college plans so he went to culinary school instead. Garcia returned to Ramen Chops as a manager nearly six months ago despite options to work elsewhere.

“I love the people that work here, I like the atmosphere, I grew up in Monument and Palmer Lake so it’s a place of which I’m familiar,” Garcia said. “It’s flexible, I get to make good food for people and put smiles on people’s faces…you get to see that human connection happening.”

Most of Garcia’s friends took the college route but he wants to stay in the service industry.

“I love to cook, always have, always will,” Garcia said. “Right now Mike is teaching me a lot inside the restaurant, whether that be actually cooking or on the management side and I plan to stick with it wholeheartedly.”

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Editor’s note: This story was updated to show the correct percentages for US and Colorado teen workforce participation.