Maria Carrasquillo (mcarrasquillo@vtherm.com) is a Compliance Specialist at Vapotherm Inc. in Exeter, NH.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated that of the 151 million US citizens employed in 2016, 47 million were between the ages of 20 and 35, a generation branded as millennials (as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary: A person born in the 1980s or 1990s). As the generation that has recently overtaken the baby boomersas America’s largest living generation, millennials have begun to permeate various industries within the private sector. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has published that more than 7 million millennialscurrently work in wholesale and retail trade, with the 25­–34 age group taking the number one spot among the more than 20 million employed within this sector. But the idea that the number of millennialsentering the US workforce has been growing quickly is not a novel concept.

Within the last decade, the industry has witnessed changes in the workplace, some of which have been introduced to attract this new generation of employees. From the introduction of open offices and interactive workspaces, to the incorporation of extra workday perks such as beer carts, ping-pong tables, and other break-time activities, the private sector has begun to experience a “youth-quake” of its own. What has remained relatively stagnant is the training experience of this new generation of employees.