THE summer of 2021 was the strongest in years for U.S. teenagers seeking work. More than 6 million U.S. teens, or 36.6 percent, had a paying job for at least part of last summer, marking the highest teen summer employment rate since 2008, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

THE greatest number of employed teens last summer — 2.3 million, or 36.2 percent of all employed teens — worked in the accommodation and food services industry, which has been the largest employer of teens for the past two decades. That industry, which includes hotels and motels, resorts, restaurants and similar establishments, also had the biggest increase in teen jobs between summer 2020 and summer 2021, accounting for 41 of every 100 newly created teen jobs.

UPSKILLING has been trending upward recently, with 57 percent of employers helping employees to hone their leadership skills, according to a Robert Half survey. Thirty-nine percent of employers are expanding their professional development options to upskill their employees via cross-training programs, e-learning, in-house training, job shadowing, mentoring and more.

FIFTY-FIVE percent of companies surveyed by Robert Half have increased compensation for current employees. While 66 percent of employees have received a raise in the past year, 62 percent of professionals plan to ask for a raise this year to either adjust for cost of inflation, to get paid the market rate for their job or to compensate for increased responsibilities among the top reasons.

OUT of 182 cities across the U.S., Manchester ranked No. 142 of the most stressed cities, factoring in stressors in the workplace, financial and family stress, and health and safety stress. When it comes to safety stress related to a city’s crime rate, Nashua came in low at No. 177, with Springfield, Mo., ranked as the highest.