Teens who want to work are in high demand by small businesses this summer

And that will come as a relief since working teens were hard hit by pandemic-related layoffs. In May of 2020, their national unemployment rate was just shy of 30%, according to federal jobs data.

But by this May, it had plummeted to 9.6%, a level not seen since the early 1950s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

One reason is that teens are now benefiting from the difficult time many small businesses are having trying to adequately staff their operations as pandemic restrictions are lifted.

‘When can you start?’

Before the pandemic, Jeff Rogoff would typically only hire teens as delivery drivers for his sit-down pizza restaurant Sazza, located in a suburb south of Denver.

Rogoff always figured it wasn’t worth his time and money to train people to work in his restaurant’s kitchen if he knew they would leave in a few months when school starts, he said.

Plus, he added, he has to abide by legal…

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