Gen Z is prioritizing living over working because they've seen 'the legacy of broken promises' in corporate America, a future-of-work expert says

My only hope is people look around at the fact that one of the few ways to still get a pension is through union work, and the current unionization wave continues into something bigger, better, and greater than we've had in the past.

That's one of the risks of not being unionized. My employer can't touch my pension (not that they would want to since they all came up from the union rank and file too) because it's all managed through our union contract and there's no chance in hell that we ever approve a contract that gives them that kind of control.

Well interest does come into it. Y'all can't afford the interest payments on the loans you'd need. Can't even find a decently priced used car.

The article talks about millenials not being able to afford houses..

Right, like the majority of my millennial friends also work to live, not live to work, it's just that living is so damn expensive that after we're done working enough to pay rent, there's not many hours left in the week to live.

I'm incredibly privileged. I have no debt, no loans, and housemates to split bills with. I only do 20 hours of paid work per week, and my hourly rate is pretty damn decent for my industry (I'm a coordinator in a community centre, I make $32AUD an hour).

I enjoy my work life balance and I wouldn't have it any other way, I have time to care for my chronic illness properly, and time for friends, and family, and to volunteer in my community for passion projects that could never in a million years pay the bills.

But being in your mid thirties and splitting rent with other people is tough, I fortunately don't want marriage or kids, but I can't see how I'd make it work if I did, babies can't help me split the rent, and most housemates don't want to live with a crying baby that isn't theirs.

So when my friend leaves his fun job for a grind company we know sucks our your soul, but it pays 8x as much and it's "just for 2 years until the deposit is saved for and the baby is born" then it's completely understandable why the next 24 months of my friends life is consumed with work. Because he needs that work now, so that he can live later.

But 2 years becomes 5 years becomes 10 years because first it's the GFC, then it's the housing bubble, then it's the mini recession, then it's covid, now it's whatever the fuck times were living in.

And at some point for millennials (and many younger Gen X'ers) living became surviving and we work to survive, we don't even know what thriving looks like.

I feel like millennials have a "It is what it is, guess ill work til I die" attitude whereas Gen Z have more of a Bartleby the Scrivener "I'd rather not" energy.

Gen x here and we seen it coming as well but no options for us at the time. I don’t blame any of you. Corporate greed and the great 401k lie is bullshit. They want us to work till we’re dead. Screw them.

As a millennial: I think it’s the dichotomy between “I play the game even though I hate it because it genuinely feels like the only viable option to have a remotely satisfying life” and “fuck the game”.

I'm a millennial too, and I see some of this but it only seems to be some industries. I'm a programmer and my coworkers are like 90% about "the grindset", but people I meet who are in health and wellness are 90% the other way. I also feel like cities and large metros tend to be more focused on work, and less urban areas are more focused on living.

I would say a lot of millenials are this way too, and it's not fair to say it's just a gem z thing, but it's far from the majority... At least around me. There seem to at least be pockets of it, but overall I feel like it's closer to 20%.

With gen z, I feel like the people are way more heavily skewed the other way. I've had gen z general contractors and such just cut the bullshit, tell it like it is, and show that they value ME more than THEIR BOSS. It seems much more universal in their generation.

But that's just my experience. I dunno which is more universal.

It’s a gradient.

Actually the biggest difference I've seen isn't in effort but ability. I work with everyone from Boomers to Gen Z and by far my Gen Z coworkers have the hardest time with being given a general task and completing it without detailed instructions. Even with detailed instructions, I often have to repeat the instructions due to mistakes and check my younger colleagues' work more closely.

I think this is, in part, because Gen Z grew up with things that just worked or that they needed to go to a third party to fix if there were issues. Boomers fixed their own cars and did a lot of DIY home repair, Gen X and Millenials both learned to navigate computers and the internet before there were any real instructional guides or helpful UIs. Shit, we used to program games on our calculators for fun. I think many in Gen Z just never had that because many of those DIY elements require proprietary tools now. A smartphone just works and is designed to be so intuitive a baby can figure it out. It's not their fault, but it does mean that some critical thinking skills are absent because they're used to outsourcing the solutions to those problems.

But, again, I have never perceived that they're not hard workers. On the contrary, I'd argue my Gen Z coworkers, when they're on their game, are way more efficient than everyone else and definitely work smarter, not harder, which I try to learn from them.

Half of genx too but nobody ever mentions us.

I agree. And I got extreme with it. because when it comes to making sure all the money we earn goes to ourselves and to our own betterment, the biggest obstacle in the way is the egregious cost of housing. In order to get on top of that hurdle, we either have to become part of the real estate industry, or entirely opt out of it. Well I entirely opted out of it.

VanLife. Yup I've been doing van life for the last 3 years. Complete with Solar panels, plumbing, climate control, bedroom, kitchen, storage space. I am in my van right now in one of my membership gym's parking lot. Every dime I earn goes to me and to whatever I choose, NOT to the extortionate housing industry.

Yeah no...So every communist either: !) Figures out how to not be a worker and then abandons the thought 2)Actually manages to be in the revolutionary council but may get assassinated later on 3)Never had any motivation at all, writes articles like this.

America isn’t a country, it’s just a business

It's three businesses in a country sized trench coat.

Your brainwashed mesmerized grandparents and their lazy non-voting baby boomer children let Reagan through the door in no uncertain terms, and in that environment the 80s "hostile corporate takeover" and junk bonds fever set in; with bottomless greed as the virus, which like herpes, seems to stick around forever.

EDIT: a word

It's not a psychopath. It's a sociopath.

If it makes you feel any better, the rent was going to skyrocket regardless of the loan forgiveness. That's just the generations before us people trying to make sure they get to the top so they can pull the ladder up behind them.

We have no loan forgiveness here in Canada and rent is still going up faster than anyone can afford. It doesn't help that all of the politicians are landlords.

I just saw the other month that only like 46% of Millennials own a house, compared to the 65% average of other generations. And of those who don't, 52% of them aren't saving for a down payment, often because of how shitty wages and even finding a job are. On top of that, only 20% of houses are currently affordable for the average American worker, down from 60% in 2016. And people wonder why we have no faith in the system.

Gen Z saw what happened to Gen X and to us Millennials, and don't expect it to get any better for them either.

That sounds like a horrible Kafkaesque nightmare. I fear my country is heading in the same direction. I'm saddened that it got so bad in the US, and that the "obvious steps in the right direction" were simply voted against. I'm reminded of the Community episode where they explore the alternative realities. We're in the "Bernie lost to HIllary" one. Before that happened, I told a friend "Well... if Bernie loses, it's all going to shit". Sucks to have been right, although it started some time ago with Reagan gutting the middle class.

We either figure out how to redistribute wealth in the society in the next 30 years, or... "going to shit" will be the least of our problems.

Yeah I mean mad magazine was talking about gen x like this back in the 90s. But the media needs to pretend everything today is new or they'd have nothing to print.

Checking in. We’re some of the few who didn’t adopt the boomer dream.

For you what does prioritizing life over work look like exactly? Genuinely curious.

Also genX, I went hard in corporate life for a long time, survived many rounds of layoffs and watched good friends go for reasons that are bad ones- until one fine day I was laid off with 18,000 others. Meanwhile they kept hiring H1B workers and doing stock buybacks and doing mass-layoffs every 2 years to keep the regional labor market full of competition and wages depressed. Knowing that they're not interested in keeping their promises of stability and prosperity goes a long ways towards me never going above and beyond

Also GenX. Not being able to afford treatment for mental illness robbed me of 20 years of living. I had better insurance in the 90s than I do now. Never thought I would miss my HMO from then.

Everyone should prioritize life over work.

I agree. But also: nobody should expect others to carry them. You have to balance these two things in your life.

Since many people here are American, I feel like I need to clarify a bit. I live in a country where almost nobody works over 7,5h per day. And when they do, every hour is compensated for, sometimes with 150%/200% surcharge. I find it extremely weird that some people in a 1st world country work overtime for free, or generally speaking "work" over 8 hours per day in intellectual work on a regular basis.

The problem, or at least one of them, is that those words resonate so well with her viewers. I am not excusing her, but if she did not say them then someone else would - so yeah it's more the game than the playa.

People in Gen-Z just don't work hard as often. Ofc there are reasons: why should they, when their work isn't valued/rewarded properly? So then to the self-ish/-centered crowd, all they see is that they get served less well by their Gen-Z slaves workers than the Millennials who put in more of an effort, but rather than take ownership of that and like go somewhere else that pays their workers better, they instead blame the victim. Like, "I paid a whole dollar for this burger - why aren't you smiling at me harder as you walk out in the rain to hand-deliver it to me?"

Like if you have to live with your parents or roommates anyway, and have little to no hope of ever owning your own home, or possibly even car, and also can't afford health insurance, to get married, and after over-turning of Roe v. Wade to have sex (even if you were married), etc. then why should you work more than the bare minimum to survive?

If you kick a dog often enough, it stops being happy to see you.:-( Boomers solution: it must need to be kicked harder, until it complies and wags its tail enthusiastically whenever you come home. I am sorry if it breaks your heart to read that sentence... but fwiw, at least it proves you have one:-).

They all belong to a specific economic class.

Money rots your brain.

A corporate 'promise' is a verbal unenforceable contract. What do you even do with the promise of a habitual liar?

A house? In this economy?

Some of us gen x saw this in high school but were surrounded by angry boomers who treated us like we were idiots.

Then don’t work at a corporation. There are plenty of startups / small businesses out there who are in dire need of talented people.

Companies were never loyal to worker not in 80s and not now. They are loyal to profit 😁

At the last big boy firm I worked at, they set the metrics for getting a bonus so unrealistically high that it disincentived staff from even trying. It had a negative effect where everybody purposely did just enough to not get fired rather than killing themselves to come up short and get nothing.

They wanted something stupid like 2,500 billable hours which do not include meetings, continuing education, mandatory volunteer time, etc etc etc.

The biggest rock stars in the industry struggle to hit 2,000.

So we all dropped down to the 1,500 range because fuck that shit.

It's shocking how much bare minimum work happens, or how much tossing over the fence and "yeah we're aware we'll fix it later" style approaches happen at my job. We can't hire the right level of expertise because we won't pay for it. I've got a foot out the door and it really doesn't matter where I go because it will be a raise for the same stupid kind of environment, but at least it'll be a raise.

This generation says they're not falling for your clickbait headlines!

Yeah and a "future-of-work expert"? 🤣

What you're seeing is the result of decades of Reaganomics coming home to roost.

Look up Hunter' Thompson's book about the "Hell's Angels." There's a chapter on the economics of being a biker/hippie/artist circa 1970.

A biker could work six months as a Union stevedore and earn enough to live on the road for two years, and a part time waitress could support herself and a musician boyfriend.

All I see is author projection.

I wish I had that kind of foresight

"Robots are taking our jerbs"

from a "future of work expert"

The company I work for had record earnings recently and there were high spirits, long praising newsletter from the CEO. Praise for maintaining a very stable production and higher output with fewer people than competitors.

Until our closest competitors reported their earnings. Which were higher, not surprising as they are bigger than us. Then it was doom and gloom

All of a sudden we had to have substantial budget cuts, and couldn't rehire to fill a position for someone who had left.

Crazy huh, earned a boatload of money, but someone else earned a bit more. So then we have to cut expenses and optimize.

They still had the audacity recently to try to push the company "spirit and mindset" to employees. Something something buzzwords..

They will still discard you as fast as yesteryears iPhone.

Could amount to nothing

Read between the lines here, article writer 🥲, everything amounts to nothing. Nobody wants their life to pass by unlived

Old people are impossible to talk to, painfully neurotic and stupid and obsessed with collecting clothing and electronics. They have zero compassion. They know the social contract is broken and they keep telling us to make the same decisions as them knowing we will get nothing for it and die

I wanted to see a graph, and couldn't find one online.

It looks like, at least in the middle of Canada, being born between 1960 and 1980 was the ideal time if you wanted to buy a home.

This doesn't take into account mortgage rates, tax rates, average household income, unemployment rates, or other cost of living expenses.
I just wanted a little chart, not to lose my whole day

In the middle of Canada; Winnipeg, MB:

Lazy sources:
https://www.gov.mb.ca/labour/standards/history-min.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3TKC-H0omc
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/980512/dq980512-eng.htm

In 1960 you could buy an estate in Beverly Hills, or La Jolla, for a cool $100,000

Recently the boss asked since guy why he doesn't put in more effort for the end of year evaluation and a promotion. Guy opens a spreadsheet that he'd been working on. It basically shows that even when he'd double his wage in that promotion, he still would not be able to afford a house and felt striving for a promotion in those circumstances didn't matter much. The boss left.

When you ask why kids don’t want to work these days...

It's simple - just don't ever ask:-). \s :-( 🥲

And yeah, the rate of suicide (including overdosing) is quite shocking. Or depending on who you ask I would guess, "excellent" (evil laughter while wringing hands). Factors like race or even class doesn't seem to matter to them (edit: okay so they do matter, but it still happens across all of them) - globalization and mechanization means fewer workers are necessary, hence what is not necessary is irrelevant, to The (Illuminati's) Machine, that cares only for survival of the fittest. :-|

Oh, and no - "keeping removed about shit" implies things like not actively voting to take away further rights & privileges. Roe v. Wade was just the start! Next are elections and democracy itself... I only wish I could add a /s here, but from the chatter... it's no longer just a joking matter anymore? :-( That generation isn't done yet it seems, implementing the will of whatever their chosen TV Man tells them to do:-(.

Like "You Must Bow Before the Will of God" - oh so you mean like care about people, taking care of widows & orphans, pay workers the wages they are due, always show kindness and compassion even to the undeserving, stuff like that? "No, I meant lower taxes on the top 0.0000001% - and also wipe my butt for me". Ooookkkkkkaaaaayyyyyy then....

On the bright side, Gen-Z has stuff figured out - they know how to be happier, simply by not giving a shit:-D. Yes they will suffer - as will we all - but less so, having broken free from that horrible mindset that blinded their predecessors? :-)

My grandfather was a garbage man so my father could be a fireman so I could stock grocery shelves whilst writing the Great American Novel on my days off.

I'd even argue that's too fucking much

It's the imbalance that's always been the problem. People want to work, but many have to work to survive. So every day is a struggle for survival. It's no wonder we're seeing a rise in anxiety disorders, depression, suicide, and general health decline across the board. Some day every late stage capitalist society will normalize the kind of work culture we see in China, South Korea, and Japan, where people are worked to death and have no time for themselves. No time and no safety net for starting families. And paid just enough to get by, not to thrive.

I'm with the younger generations here. I'd rather amuse myself to death than work myself to death.

The pandemic was a big mask off moment for corpos.

If you live in more ancient times, do you want to be a slave?

Soft disagree. I want to do meaningful work and interesting work. It's boring bullshit getting 10 managers to approve a change when none of them know what I even do. I love working on my projects in my garage, or in my kitchen on baking something.

Wow what a sweeping statement with no legs to stand on.

I love work. I worked (yes) quite hard to get a degree and become a developer and ML engineer. One day, I'd like to work in computational neuroscience. I hate so many things about work culture, but the work itself? Naaah, it's awesome. I'd rather spend every day in this life working on something I love and have interested in, instead of going around making sweeping statements about the entire globe on the internet, incapable of accepting that not everyone is like me.