Gen Z teens get a crash course in pitfalls of US jobs market

With millions of unemployed adults opting to stay on the sidelines and employers scrambling to fill job openings, Gen Z teens are stepping into the breach and learning sobering lessons about working in the US services industry.

Every summer in the United States, teens across the country pound the pavement in search of gainful employment. But this year, teens belonging to Generation Z, the cohort born between 1997 and 2012, are finding a motherload of job openings to choose from. Among them is 16-year-old Hailey Hamilton of Flower Mound, Texas. She recently quit her job at a pizza restaurant, confident that she could quickly land a new one at her local mall. “Everyone is looking to hire right now,” she told Al Jazeera. “Everyone is understaffed.”