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'I think we deserve to start telling our own narrative rather than let others do it for us.'
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As the nation’s economy continues to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, employers in Utah may have more options for filling job vacancies than in other states.
Utah teens ages 16–19 make up 7% of the state’s entire workforce, The Salt Lake Tribune reported in May, well above the national rate of 3.7%. Wisconsin, ranked second, counts teens in that range as only 5.4% of its workforce.
But there is another important data point to pay attention to: The percentage of Utah teens who work. Wisconsin comes in first, with 59.9% of teens there having some kind of job, but Utah isn’t far behind. As of 2023, nearly 57% of Utah teens have a taxable income, according to Mark Knold, chief economist at the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
Knold said he thinks Utah’s typically larger size of families helps explain the trend.
“The more children you have, the less money [there is] to distribute out to [them],” Knold said. “Teens [in Utah] have more of an incentive to go out and get a job, to help out, or to get some [of their own] spending money. There’s more competition in the household itself for access to parents’ income.”
Another contributing factor, Knold said, is that the job market in Utah has shown 3% growth consistently for several years, leading to a higher demand for a wider variety of workers.
“We’re really in an environment where we’re asking for more labor than what’s available, so it’s really a strong environment for teenage workers,” Knold added.
To work full time in most states, a teenager must be at least 16 years old, according to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. According to Utah law, there are several types of jobs that can legally employ younger children. In Utah, a 10-year-old can deliver newspapers, and a 14-year-old can work at a neighborhood fast-food restaurant or in snow removal — though there are limits on the number of hours they’re allowed to work.
In recent months, three Utah companies have been caught breaking federal and state child labor laws.
Last December, 11 locations of the Crumbl cookie chain were found guilty of letting children 10 to 14 years of age work more hours than what is federally legal. A restaurant supply store in Salt Lake City was also found guilty of a similar matter, incurring a $17,000 penalty. And the Utah-based soda and dessert chain Sodalicious was found guilty of permitting teens as young as 14 to work past federally restricted hours on school nights.
The U.S. Department of Labor, which investigated those three businesses, found a 37% national increase in the number of minors whose employment has violated federal labor laws in some way since 2021, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
It’s no coincidence that those three employers were operating in the food service and retail industries. Knold said that, in Utah, the majority of teenagers get their first jobs in the service industry.
But what if a teen worker has other plans besides flipping burgers or stocking shelves? According to Knold, experience in the working world supplements a teen’s academic career rather than detracting from it.
With a job, Knold said, “you can show a skill set, you can show a work history, and also understand what the workplace is like, compared to … the school environment.”
In the working world, Knold added, “there’s no re-doing a test or getting credit for turning in late homework. That’s not how the working and business communities operate. So, you get that knowledge and experience in terms of what it will take to succeed in the workforce.”
Sam Kinghorn, 17 and a senior at Skyline Valley High School, started working at the Chick-fil-A in Salt Lake City’s Sugar House neighborhood in May. While Kinghorn said he was first motivated by the prospect of saving his own money, he added that the experience of working in a fast-paced restaurant environment has reinforced a sense of responsibility.
“One thing I’ve learned is [to be] responsible for your actions in the workplace,” Kinghorn said, “especially in a fast-food working environment [where] everything is so fast-paced [and] you have to make sure everything’s accurate.”
While there are limits on the number of hours teenage employees can work per week at Chick-fil-A — a number that decreases in months when school is in session — Kinghorn said the environment is conducive not only to customer service but team-building.
Kinghorn described how many of his Chick-fil-A coworkers have flocked from surrounding neighborhoods, some from as far as Bingham High School in South Jordan. And they’ve mostly all stuck around.
“They’ve all decided to come here because they wanted the work experience,” Kinghorn said. “And once they’ve been able to connect with all of their coworkers, they don’t want to leave.”
This was especially important for Kinghorn when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, around the same time he graduated from middle school to high school.
Because of social distancing, he said, “it was really hard for me to talk to people. … So, getting this job, where I’m constantly communicating with other people, has really helped.”
In the summer, when he wasn’t traveling with family, Kinghorn worked 40 hours per week at Chick-fil-A. However, during school months, the state requires that he step it down to 20 hours per week. He works these hours consistently, he said.
Kinghorn has some coworkers who are 14 and 15. They can only clock up to 2½ hours on any day that they work.
While Kinghorn said his long-term plans likely don’t involve food service, 17-year-old Liam Pool, a high schooler at Summit Academy and a tire and oil tech at Burt Brothers in Draper, has found his high school job has helped him develop skills that will help him pursue his dream of opening his own auto mechanic shop.
Pool has worked at Burt Brothers since he was 16 — ever since he was old enough to get a license, which is required for pulling cars to and from the shop’s lot. Before Burt Brothers, Pool’s first job was also at Chick-fil-A, at a franchise in Murray.
Pool said that, like Kinghorn, Chick-fil-A mostly taught him about customer service. However, when Pool became old enough to drive, he said he sought out work at a mechanics’ shop, so he could build on what he already knew — and to stave off the doldrums of school nights.
“I would go to school all day, do homework, then just sit around,” Pool said. “I’m a very energetic teenager, so as soon as I could drive, I got a job.”
Pool’s interest in mechanic’s work comes naturally. Both his father and grandfather, he said, are skilled home mechanics who taught him the basics of such things as oil changes and fuel flushes. His favorite car to work on, he said, was the Willy’s Jeep that his father owns, a WWII-era model that was used by the U.S. Army and remains a collector’s favorite.
Pool, who said he has a 3.5 grade point average at Summit Academy, is scheduled to graduate in December. He has worked hard to graduate six months early, he said, and it’s going to pay off soon.
“I’ve learned a lot here,” Pool said. “And if I go to a trade school, I’ll be a step ahead of other kids that go to a trade school without the experience.”
Pool works 20 hours per week while in school, but will step up to 40 hours per week when he graduates. A typical day sees him come in after spending the morning in class, and working from 1 to 6 p.m. He’s part of a team of 4 or 5 people, working on each car that comes in. As he strives to meet Burt Brothers’ deadlines, Pool said he has learned the benefits of being efficient and skillful, all to give the customer a good experience.
Kinghorn and Pool share much in common with many Utah teenagers. Many have jobs, and those who do — within their legally regulated hours — find practical ways to succeed, and experience life outside of a classroom.
“This is where I want to learn and keep my life going,” Kinghorn said.
Kyle Forbush wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a new collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text :This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Kyle Forbush wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
Students who have walked through the Academic and Administration Building at Salt Lake Community College’s Taylorsville Redwood Campus may have noticed new signs outside certain restrooms.
The signage is bright green and features three circles — which read “body,” “mind” and “spirit” — surrounding an image of a restroom stick figure.
Those signs are part of a pilot program from SLCC’s Student Association, or SLCCSA, to make single-occupancy restrooms at the college more gender inclusive. The group initiated the pilot program toward the end of this year’s summer semester – and now, it is making plans for what comes next.
“SLCCSA’s goal is [for students to feel] comfort in restrooms that align with their gender expression or identity,” said Timothy Davis, director of the Thayne Center for Student Life, Leadership and Community Engagement.
Initial rollout of the green signage stalled because some of the signs were falling off the walls to which they were attached. Also, according to SLCCSA President Lindsay Simons, a miscommunication led Student Center Operations to take down signage that they mistook for unauthorized postings.
Despite the setbacks, Davis said the response from students has been positive. “Students shared their appreciation for this step forward,” he said, adding that SLCCSA is ready to proceed with future plans for restroom signage.
“We have some exciting new prototypes developed,” Davis said. “In the coming weeks, SLCCSA will relaunch with a jointly approved sticker in some select locations, and will remove any remaining signage from the pilot.”
After the redesigned signs are in place, Davis said, SLCCSA will seek additional feedback from students before expanding the program.
Current plans, however, go beyond signage. SLCCSA’s executive council voted unanimously to implement inclusive restroom design, a long-campaigned request from the college’s Queer Student Association and the Gender and Sexuality Student Resource Center.
According to Davis, inclusive restroom design could entail multi-stall restrooms not segregated by gender, but he said that no announcements are ready to be made yet.
New plans for inclusive restroom design will not include the Applied Technology Building, set to reopen next year after a fire in 2020 required the building to undergo reconstruction.
Jonny Tollestrup wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a new collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text:
This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism. Jonny Tollestrup wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
To learn more about issues and initiatives related to the LGBTQ+ community at SLCC, visit the GSSRC via its webpage, slcc.edu/gssrc, or their office at the South City Campus, or follow them on Instagram at @slccgssrc.
Social researchers say it takes 21 days to build a habit.
Salt Lake Community College and the YWCA have created a digital challenge, giving students, faculty and staff an opportunity to learn more about racial equity and social justice and the role they play.
According to the event page, the challenge was designed to “create dedicated time and space to learn about racial equity and build more effective social justice habits.” The goal was to fulfill SLCC’s vision that, “Salt Lake Community College will be a model for inclusive and transformative education.”
Over the span of three weeks, participants received an email with three choices, depending on the time they had available on any given day. The “21 Day Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge” began Oct. 4 and ended Nov. 1. For those who missed the event, they can find the information on the YWCA’s website — ywcautah.org.
Ken-tay Lee, an intern with SLCC’s justice, equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives (JEDI), said it’s good that this program exists, but it needs to be followed by actionable items.
“I look for this challenge to be just that — a challenge,” he said. “Any time we can talk about race and talk about how to undo what racism has done, then that is positive. Any time we only have those conversations and they never lead to action, then that is where we find ourselves stagnated, unable to grow.”
Lee used the Black Lives Matter movement as an example. It’s one thing to show support and have BLM flags around campus, Lee said, and another to create opportunities to support Black lives.
“I would like to know what actionable items we are doing in a Black life that matters,” Lee said. “Where on campus can we directly build bridges for people who have been disenfranchised and make sure that they make it to success?”
Ariane Barboza, who also works in the JEDI office as an intern, said it’s important for SLCC to bridge the equity gap for students.
“Being a successful student is a challenge for us, because we don’t come from privilege … [and can’t] just go to school and focus on studies,” she said.
Data from the Office for Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at SLCC showed in 2019 the six-year completion rate for Black students was 19%, in comparison to a 27% completion rate for white students. For Asian students, the completion rate was 33%, 21% for Hispanic students, and 10% for Pacific Islander students.
Students of color, Barboza said, disproportionately have obligations outside of school she doesn’t often see in her white peers, like caring for younger siblings, helping family who are unsheltered, or who are dealing with addictions.
“Even if you want to take it seriously,” she said, “life is still probably going to win.”
One actionable item Lee is proud of is SLCC’s Utah Reintegration Project, which focuses on previously incarcerated men and women returning to society.
“We foresee in the future that it will be a very bright beacon for students, or for people who want to become students,” Lee said. “We’re asking for the culture to make sure we graduate, we get careers.”
As a jumping-off point and educational tool, the 21-day email event can provide value to participants and their communities.
“I think SLCC is a safe space to talk about racism,” Barboza said " We can start with a 21-day challenge [and build from there]. We have to start somehow.”
Samantha Herrera, journalism and digital media student and digital editor at The Globe, participated in the challenge during the spring 2021 semester.
One lesson stood out to her.
“They had one day when they were talking about alternatives to police presence, like de-escalation and mental health resources,” Herrera said. “Alternatives to police is something I’ve been hearing about for a while, especially after last year, but I had never heard the ideas behind how to do it. The actual steps that people could take.”
Since doing the challenge, Herrera said she questions herself more.
“Whenever I think about an emergency situation, my first instinct was to call the police,” she said. “But now, is that the right answer to certain situations, or any situation? It makes you take a pause. It makes you question why you think that and whether it’s something that’s been taught to you through our society, or if it’s something you actually believe.”
At the end of the 21 days, Herrera formed the habit of questioning her past thoughts, helping shape her actions in the future.
Juliana DeMay wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text :This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Juliana DeMay wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
A woman from Venezuela came to Luz Gamarra in January with a request: Bring English-as-a-second-language classes to Salt Lake Community College’s annex in Herriman, where the woman lived.
Gamarra, the lead academic adviser for humanities and ESL students at SLCC, told the woman she needed to gather at least 10 signatures from residents wanting the program in Herriman. The annex there offers general-education classes to Salt Lake County’s southwest corner. The nearest campus offering ESL classes was at SLCC’s Taylorsville location on Redwood Road, nearly 16 miles away.
Four months later, the woman returned with more than 60 signatures. Gamarra coordinated with the ESL department, and soon, ESL classes were on the Herriman Annex course schedule for the fall semester, which begins August 23.
“We’re so happy,” Gamarra said. “We are here to respond to the necessities of our communities and students of different backgrounds.”
For Gamarra, the work is personal — because back in 2004, arriving in Salt Lake City from Peru with two graduate degrees but unable to speak English, she was in much the same situation.
In her 12 years at the college, Gamarra has helped hundreds of ESL students primarily through peer mentoring programs, such as Amigos Mentores (“mentor friends”) and ESL Legacy Mentors, which pairs new ESL students with current and past students to help them succeed. Gamarra calls this “the chain of success.”
Her work has led to national recognition. In March, USA Today honored her as their Utah “Women of the Year” for her significant positive impact on her community. The paper cited her work with immigrants and ESL students to get them into college, and then connecting them with mentors.
“These honorees are strong and resilient women who have been champions of change across the country, leading and inspiring as they promote and fight for equity, and give others a place to seek help and find hope,” USA Today wrote.
As a student in Peru, Gamarra earned her master’s and doctorate studies in law and political science. When she moved to Utah with her family in 2004, she got one consistent answer whenever she asked about how her degrees could be applied in the U.S. workforce: “You need to start over.”
Gamarra said she reluctantly accepted the advice because she did not speak English and found herself in an unfamiliar country and academic circumstances. Wanting to learn the language, Gamarra enrolled at SLCC in 2005, starting with ESL classes. Two years later, she had earned an associate degree in social work.
She then went to the University of Utah to apply for a bachelor’s degree, where a staff member told her she had been given wrong information years before. “[They] told me that there had been no need to start with an associate degree,” Gamarra said in Spanish. “I could have immediately applied for a master’s degree.”
“This idea had been put into my head, that I would need to start from scratch all over again,” Gamarra said. “Looking back, it seems that school members did not know how to work with [non-English speakers and] people from other countries.”
Gamarra said that “many immigrants like me were going through the same thing ... they didn’t have the accurate information to take advantage of and grow.”
Learning that, she said, spurred her to action. “I knew I had to do something,” she said.
After earning a master’s in social work, Gamarra returned to SLCC to work as an adviser, with the goal of helping ESL students get into college. In her job, Gamarra oversees ESL Legacy Mentors, a peer mentoring program that began in September 2019 and now helps over 300 students.
Often, she said, new ESL students — most of whom were born outside the country and experience a language barrier — feel nervous or too embarrassed to ask for help. Programs like ESL Legacy Mentors work to build trust.
“Having a mentor makes the difference,” Gamarra said. “Creating activities where students can feel a sense of belonging, connect and make friends – for me that is the key. Many times, the cultural shock of having to learn English can isolate us.”
Gamarra said about 80% of the students who walk into her office only intend to learn English and move on, believing that school is not for them. SLCC graduate Cinthia Gonzalez was one such student.
Gonzalez, also from Peru, moved to Utah in January 2020. She loved the state but found it hard to integrate, and felt she needed to learn a new language and more about the cultural differences. Gonzalez decided to take ESL classes, which is where she met Gamarra.
“My initial goal was just to learn English, so I could communicate, and then to get a job – to do things for myself,” Gonzalez said.
While taking ESL classes, Gonzalez became more involved in the college and acted as president of ESL Legacy Mentors from February 2020 to December 2021, and remained a student mentor afterwards. She said the program changed how she viewed education. “The group showed me that I could study something more,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez received scholarships to pursue a degree in interior design, and walked at SLCC’s commencement ceremony earlier this month. While at the college, Gonzalez also took interest in construction, and is now looking to transfer to Utah Valley University to study construction management.
She’ll continue to offer advice to students, she said, even if informally: “[We are] mentors forever.”
Gamarra said the USA Today honor was not a solo effort. She dedicated the award, she said, “to those grand women who have helped me, accompanied me and continue to accompany me.”
Those include students, professors and colleagues — as well as her daughters and her mother, who as a widow worked to support Gamarra and her siblings.
Gamarra’s daughter, Elizabeth, 23 — who graduated from SLCC in 2014 (at age 16) and received the college’s inaugural Rising Star Award, which recognizes alumni who “have made a profound and positive impact in their communities and beyond” — recalled when her mother began to create peer mentorship programs.
“It was nice to see my mom form some sort of community at SLCC where I could see myself reflected,” she said.
Elizabeth Gamarra – who has been a Fulbright Scholar, Oxford Consortium Fellowship recipient, Rotary Peace Fellow and TEDx speaker – said she mentored five Latina women, as part of her mother’s early efforts to create peer mentorship. It was, Elizabeth said, a “transformative experience because they ended up helping me more. It was the first time I saw Latina women super united.”
Luz Gamarra likened community colleges to “prepared soil” for helping ESL students — and that, for her, mentorship is an effort that doesn’t end.
“My dad always said, alongside my mom, ‘You must help someone, that’s good. Don’t leave alone – always take someone with you,’” she said. “In this life, we are here to help someone, to walk with someone hand in hand who knows the same as you, and grow.”
Cristian Martinez wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.
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We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text :This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Cristian Martinez wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.
