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When Chef Gabrielle “Gabby” Smith reflects on early experiences that helped launch her career, she doesn’t begin with a paycheck. She talks about a conversation.

“It was just a really good conversation I had with my manager,” Smith recalled during a recent webinar on good jobs for young adults co-hosted with the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program that I had the privilege of moderating in April 2026. “I really think that that created a bond between me and her, that first interaction.”

That relationship, facilitated by the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeship Program, was catalytic. So was the opportunity to learn alongside people from different backgrounds and generations as she progressed through culinary training. “I met so many wonderful people,” she said. “Students who were just like me … people who were older than me. Being at a community college, you kind of meet everybody from all different walks of life.”
The combination of talent, opportunity, and relationships helped propel the success she is achieving as the now 20-year-old founder of Grits & Gabs, a recent graduate of Johnson and Wales University, and a national youth leader sharing her insights through the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA) Youth Council.

The jobs we have in our teens and early 20s help young people earn income, develop skills, and explore career interests. These are all essential outcomes. The best early career work experiences also build confidence, identity, relationships, and a sense of what is possible. This might show up as an early connection to a focused occupational passion and structured career pathway as with Chef Gabby. For many (if not most), their journey will be a windier path. As I shared during the conversation, “good jobs for young people are places where young people have a voice, where they’re not just working, but contributing meaningfully, building relationships and growing, where they can connect to, or at least explore, their sense of purpose.” 
Discussions about youth employment focus on whether young people can get a job. That’s necessary but insufficient. We need to work across sectors to create jobs, pathways, and workplaces where young people thrive.

A Good Job Requires Safety and Dignity

Not every early work experience creates opportunity, certainly not equally.

As Jessica Martinez, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH), told us: “One of the biggest myths in this country is that youth employment naturally builds character or opportunity. Too often, early jobs are where young people first encounter exploitation. There are supervisors who treat them as disposable labor.” 

A job cannot be a good job if it is not a safe job. When we talk about creating opportunity for young people, safety, dignity, and respect cannot be afterthoughts. They are foundational conditions for growth and learning. Through support of Mass COSH’s Teens Lead at Work and the national We Rise! Worker Leadership Academy, National COSH supports young people not simply as recipients of training, but as organizers, educators, advocates, and problem-solvers. As Martinez noted, these efforts “flip the script.” Rather than waiting for adults to identify problems, young people are gathering evidence, raising concerns, and helping create solutions so they can be safe and successful on the job. 

Opportunity Begins with Relationships

For many young people, access to opportunity is shaped not only by the availability of jobs, but by whether they encounter people and institutions that recognize their potential. John Valverde, president and CEO of YouthBuild Global, reflected on the organization’s work with opportunity youth, young people who are out of school and out of work and often navigating significant barriers to success. “YouthBuild is about second chances,” he said. “In fact, I think YouthBuild is about real first chances for young people.”

At the center of the YouthBuild model is a simple but powerful idea: a foundation of love rooted in developmental relationships. Valverde described the role of YouthBuild staff and partners as “surrounding young people with people who see them, hear them, seek to understand them, and value them.” These relationships create the foundation upon which education, career training, leadership development, and employment pathways can be built. “When you surround young people with people who truly, truly see the power and potential they have to transform their lives, their communities, their families,” he said, “so much is transformed.”  Recent research conducted by YouthBuild Global and Boston University validates this approach.

Creating Pathways, Not Just Positions

Employers play a critical role in determining whether teens and young adults experience work as a dead-end job, a developmental experience, or the beginning of a career pathway. 

Mandee Polonsky of Northwestern Medicine described how the organization has evolved its approach to youth workforce development, moving beyond career exposure alone to create more intentional pathways into health care careers. Recognizing that many young people cannot afford to choose between work and learning, Northwestern shifted from providing end-of-program stipends to paying participants an hourly wage throughout internships and other workforce programs. As Polonsky explained, “we don’t want that to be a trade-off” for young people seeking valuable career experiences.

Northwestern, with more than 40,000 employees across an 11-hospital system, has also worked intentionally to connect opportunities across a young person’s journey, linking high school internships to undergraduate experiences, apprenticeships, and employment opportunities. “We link intentionally with our talent acquisition team with everything that we do,” Polonsky explained, ensuring that training programs are connected to actual hiring pathways. Working closely with high schools, community colleges, workforce organizations, and community-based partners, Northwestern is building a continuum of opportunities designed to help young people explore careers, develop skills, and advance over time to meet their staffing needs across time horizons — and ultimately strong health and business outcomes — across the Chicago region.

Northwestern’s approach reflects a broader lesson for employers. Investing in young talent requires more than opening the door. It means an ecosystem approach to removing barriers to participation, creating clear pathways for advancement, and helping young people think not only about their first job, but about the careers they may build over time. As Polonsky put it, “We want people to come and to grow and think about not just their first job, but their career.”

Expanding What’s Possible

Taylor White of New America’s Center on Education and Labor challenged us to think differently about how we support young people during the transition from school to work. Too often, young people are expected to navigate increasingly complex education and labor market systems with limited opportunities to explore careers, build professional networks, or connect learning to real-world experience.

Work-based learning, youth apprenticeship, internships, and career-connected education help bridge that divide. These experiences allow young people to develop skills, apply learning in real-world settings, build relationships, and better understand the opportunities available to them.

Importantly, White emphasized that these pathways should expand opportunities rather than narrow them. “We really emphasize the importance of having those apprenticeship pathways connected to postsecondary training,” she explained, “so that young people have options expanded through these programs rather than narrowed.” In a rapidly changing economy, young people need opportunities to earn, learn, explore, and adapt while keeping doors open for whatever comes next.
Chef Gabby’s story reminds us what becomes possible when safety, relationships, opportunity, and intentional pathways come together. Access to experiences like these should not be exceptional.

The challenge before employers, educators, workforce practitioners, policymakers, and communities is not simply helping young people find jobs. It is creating the conditions where young people can contribute, grow, and thrive — where early work experiences are developmental experiences rather than merely transactions. When we take young workers seriously from the start, we strengthen not only their futures, but also our workplaces, our communities, and our economy.

Watch the Webinar: Coming of Age at Work: Good Jobs for Teens

The post Taking Young Workers Seriously: Building Good Jobs from the Start appeared first on Aspen Institute.