Speaker 1: It's Monday, May second. I'm oscar Ra Mirrors from the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Gen Z doesn't seem like they want to work, and
Speaker 1: they're broadcasting it over social media. Many have said that
Speaker 1: they don't have a dream job because they don't dream
Speaker 1: of labor. The past few years of the pandemic have
Speaker 1: changed many attitudes when it comes to the work life balance,
Speaker 1: and young people entering the workforce at this time don't
Speaker 1: want to get bogged down and tolling away with nothing
Speaker 1: to show for it. They have gained reputations as job
Speaker 1: hoppers and aren't afraid to air their grievances on social
Speaker 1: media with hashtags like quit talk. Terry Win reporter and
Speaker 1: Vox joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Terry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: happy to be here. Let's talk about work specifically when
Speaker 1: it comes to gen Z. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of generational differences and attitudes when it comes to working.
Speaker 1: And you know, we just went through the pandemic, we
Speaker 1: went through the Great Resignation. Everybody was looking to strike
Speaker 1: that work life balance, and especially our younger generations as
Speaker 1: they come into a workforce. That's kind of been disrupted
Speaker 1: all all different types of ways their attitudes specifically are changing.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that struck me is that
Speaker 1: kind of this anti work ideology that seems to be
Speaker 1: spreading out there. There's this great phrase that you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people tell you, you know, you should
Speaker 1: work to getting your dream job, but a lot of
Speaker 1: these gen Z people say, you know, they don't dream
Speaker 1: of labor. You know, they don't. They're there, they don't
Speaker 1: have a dream job because they're not dreaming of working forever.
Speaker 1: So Terry walk us through some of this. What are
Speaker 1: we seeing with it? Yeah, So I was really interested
Speaker 1: in this popularity of as you mentioned, kind of this
Speaker 1: seeming like anti work ideology online, or people proclaiming that
Speaker 1: they aren't happy with their jobs, they're quitting their jobs,
Speaker 1: they don't name of labor, things of that nature, and
Speaker 1: whether if people are just talking to talk or if
Speaker 1: they're actually you know, quitting their jobs, or if this
Speaker 1: is really having a change in the American workplace. And
Speaker 1: what I found was that a lot of this often
Speaker 1: has kind of arisen out of discontent during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and that's led a lot of people to reassess whether
Speaker 1: their jobs are fulfilling, whether they're being paid enough, whether
Speaker 1: there's certain circumstances that work that they can that they're
Speaker 1: okay with, and what they're not okay West and so um.
Speaker 1: With most genders, UM and millennial kind of young people
Speaker 1: in general, they're not really afraid to publicly quit their
Speaker 1: jobs or put their employers on blast. But the reality
Speaker 1: is they really still have to work on journ a living.
Speaker 1: We all do. Yeah, and we've seen some of that
Speaker 1: right to that point. A long time ago. You know,
Speaker 1: usually didn't talk bad about unemployer publicly, privately in your
Speaker 1: private circles all day long, right, that's how we vent
Speaker 1: about things. But we had kind of seen this difference
Speaker 1: in especially on social media, a lot of TikTok videos
Speaker 1: and whatnot, just people putting their former employers on blasts,
Speaker 1: almost like they didn't really care what the future holds.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've been hearing all these stories. You know,
Speaker 1: employers check your social media all this stuff. You shouldn't
Speaker 1: make yourself seem like an unseemly prospect. But even that
Speaker 1: started changing a little bit. Yeah, what's interesting is I
Speaker 1: spoke to a sociologist actually who studies UM labor, and
Speaker 1: she mentioned that while you know, a lot of younger
Speaker 1: workers have this reputation for job hopping, for kind of
Speaker 1: being kind of careless about leaving their jobs very publicly,
Speaker 1: there's also it kind of holds in line with this
Speaker 1: erosion in the employer and employee contract. So a lot
Speaker 1: of employees are entering these roles understanding or with the
Speaker 1: knowledge that they're not going to stay here for very
Speaker 1: long at all, Like they're not going to go into
Speaker 1: a company and stay there for ten twenty years or
Speaker 1: their entire life, which is something that you know, their
Speaker 1: parents or grandparents might have done with an employer, And
Speaker 1: so that relationship has also really changed, and a lot
Speaker 1: of employers are more comfortable letting employees go, and so
Speaker 1: that kind of contributes a little bit to this. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if animosity is a little too strong,
Speaker 1: because not everyone is putting their employer on blasphom social media,
Speaker 1: but it certainly contributes to this like overwhelming attitude. Tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit more about this attitude from younger people,
Speaker 1: because and you know, we we go to social media
Speaker 1: a lot. Obviously, we refer to TikTok. They have this
Speaker 1: hashtag quit talk when people talk about quitting their jobs
Speaker 1: and all that, But what are the aspirations of some
Speaker 1: of these young people, Because to the point of some
Speaker 1: of this, right, it's not wanting to work. I guess
Speaker 1: there was a people saying they wanted to be a
Speaker 1: rich housewife is the goal? Uh, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to be an influencer. I don't want to work, and
Speaker 1: right this starts fueling kind of those perceptions of different generations.
Speaker 1: Everybody thinks the generation below them wants to work less
Speaker 1: and less and less. I know myself, I've, of course,
Speaker 1: who doesn't want to not have to worry about money
Speaker 1: and not work. But this is kind of the attitude
Speaker 1: that's been for me. Yeah, So I really think a
Speaker 1: better way to think about that is that young people
Speaker 1: want jobs that are better suited to them rather than
Speaker 1: kind of going in and having the hustle for like
Speaker 1: certain benefits or a position that they feel um that
Speaker 1: you know, caters to their skill set. So I spoke
Speaker 1: to a few young people and they mentioned that they
Speaker 1: want more you know, work from home flexibility, or they
Speaker 1: want an employer who allows them to you know, work
Speaker 1: on their own hours and you know, have a little
Speaker 1: more choice over certain projects or things they care about.
Speaker 1: UM and I think it's an entirely accurate to say
Speaker 1: that they don't want to work. It's kind of they're
Speaker 1: more particular about the work and the time that they're
Speaker 1: contributing to their employers. Another thing that was interesting when
Speaker 1: I was reportting this out was that there was this
Speaker 1: trend of people trying to break into other industries that
Speaker 1: might be better paying or have that our benefits of
Speaker 1: that more flexibility. UM. An example of this was the
Speaker 1: break into tech TikTok trend, where people would kind of
Speaker 1: document their efforts to go from say like a customer
Speaker 1: service job to you know, working for a tech company
Speaker 1: and kind of the skill sets and the additional hours
Speaker 1: they put in, like after their customer service jobs to
Speaker 1: get into this new role where they believe that they
Speaker 1: can you know, have a more fulfilled life doing that way.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem too far off from kind of work.
Speaker 1: It's still a person's identity. They just want to be
Speaker 1: in a better, higher paying role, which is true people definitely,
Speaker 1: and you know, even the change in attitudes from employers
Speaker 1: right there's when you're talking about these tech jobs, they
Speaker 1: need so many people obviously in a variety of different positions.
Speaker 1: Even those employers have started not using college degrees as
Speaker 1: a as an absolute requirement for employment, They're opening their
Speaker 1: pool of candidates to a lot more people in that
Speaker 1: sense of things. So you mentioned kind of this notion
Speaker 1: right that young gen zears are job hopping, they're moving
Speaker 1: around too much. But employers play a part in that also.
Speaker 1: You know, when they need to cut costs, they start
Speaker 1: cutting people out, they start firing people, especially throughout the pandemic.
Speaker 1: You know, we went through this where I worked this
Speaker 1: whole period of everybody was furloughed for a moment because
Speaker 1: you know, the company wasn't making as much. Then those
Speaker 1: furloughs got extended, then they became permanent. You know, so
Speaker 1: what does the employee do at that point while you
Speaker 1: have to start hopping around? Yeah, I also think that
Speaker 1: the economic circumstances um you know of this current moment
Speaker 1: kind of discussions about student moan that at growing well,
Speaker 1: it's inequality during the pandemic and wage stagnation over decades.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of young people are aware of this.
Speaker 1: They feel that things aren't changing and haven't changed for
Speaker 1: a very long time, and so as a result, I
Speaker 1: think they're more comfortable using um more anti capitalist language
Speaker 1: and being more politically forward and kind of what they
Speaker 1: want to see change. But I don't think the attitude
Speaker 1: is totally abandonment of work, because that's financially impossible. From
Speaker 1: its people like the country still have to go to work.
Speaker 1: But it's just I think an accumulation of all these
Speaker 1: different factors that have led people to feel just really
Speaker 1: really frustrated, and the first thing they can do about
Speaker 1: it is really to like post it about it on
Speaker 1: social media. You also raise a very interesting point in
Speaker 1: all of this of you know a lot of these
Speaker 1: younger people that are talking about this work life balance,
Speaker 1: they're very new to the workforce. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of them haven't gone through the many years of soul
Speaker 1: crushing job hours and whatnot. Right, they want to get
Speaker 1: in on the on the ground floor and just be
Speaker 1: at the top. And there's a local radio station where
Speaker 1: I live where one of the hosts coined a term
Speaker 1: called the dues gap, like you got to pay your dues,
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of times younger workers haven't
Speaker 1: paid those dues. So in the conversations that you've had
Speaker 1: with a lot of people. How do they feel about that?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's kind of the sense of
Speaker 1: you have to work your way up in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, right. I do think that there is this
Speaker 1: agreement that you have to work your way up to
Speaker 1: like middle management and management. Like. I don't think people
Speaker 1: come in expecting to be given, you know, a high
Speaker 1: level of C suite job. But I do think the
Speaker 1: desire is for every worker to feel respected in their role.
Speaker 1: And I spoke to this twenty seven year old who
Speaker 1: was based in North Carolina, and she said that she
Speaker 1: was just really frustrated that it felt like her boss
Speaker 1: didn't respect her because she was, you know, a young
Speaker 1: a person. And I felt like she wanted to work
Speaker 1: from home and could still do her job, but couldn't
Speaker 1: you know, do that. And so I think, um, these
Speaker 1: it's hard to generalize in these situations, but overall, I
Speaker 1: think the attitude is that young people want to feel
Speaker 1: empowered and respected in their jobs. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't think that they want just a shortcut to the top.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the article as well. You know, it's super
Speaker 1: easy to group people by their ages and how they feel.
Speaker 1: That's why you know, we're talking about Generation Z, you know,
Speaker 1: younger millennials and all that, but a probably better way
Speaker 1: to do it would be when they entered the workforce,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're coming off the pandemic, a lot
Speaker 1: of people going uh, you know, millennials going through recessions
Speaker 1: and then going into the pandemic and and you know,
Speaker 1: high inflation and all that stuff. This is what influences
Speaker 1: their attitudes about work, right, And when you talk about
Speaker 1: social media, people find in common ground there. You know,
Speaker 1: That's how these attitudes start persisting. And that's why we
Speaker 1: have these young people from the onset really, I guess
Speaker 1: trying to put their future in in in the best
Speaker 1: way possible, you know, I want to have that from
Speaker 1: the very beginning, right, Yeah. I I also feel like
Speaker 1: when I was writing this piece, I really tried to
Speaker 1: source with the nuance and realize that there are factors
Speaker 1: like education level, social class, raised, and gender that like
Speaker 1: factor in all the reasons why people are in the
Speaker 1: labor market or working or struggling to get a job
Speaker 1: or getting promoted. So there's like a lot of different
Speaker 1: factors at play here. But yes, the sociologists I spoke
Speaker 1: with said that entering the labor market is kind of
Speaker 1: the economic circumstance of how someone enters the labor market
Speaker 1: will shape how they feel about work. And for the
Speaker 1: past in a decade, members of Gen D millennials have
Speaker 1: witnessed basically like two recessions from back to back. And
Speaker 1: that's a very different labor market experience than what older
Speaker 1: generations have experienced. And so what is the effect of
Speaker 1: all of this? Right, We're seeing a lot more Americans
Speaker 1: wanting to start their own businesses, as you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: lower wage work workers wanting to pivot into these higher
Speaker 1: paying tech jobs. We've see this whole TikTok generation and
Speaker 1: social media generation, influencers and whatnot, people wanting to go
Speaker 1: that way. And so this is kind of where people
Speaker 1: are going to and especially and even unionization efforts, right
Speaker 1: when you look at places like Amazon who don't want unions,
Speaker 1: we're starting to see those pushes all over the country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely think this is in line with kind of
Speaker 1: these greater union unionization efforts that are occurring across the country.
Speaker 1: But kind of towards the tail and of my piece,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that while you know Jones is very vocal
Speaker 1: about this, their involvement in unions is not very high,
Speaker 1: and that could be a result of kind of there
Speaker 1: are fewer unionized jobs in America today than there were
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, and so it's really interesting to see
Speaker 1: kind of this wave of unionization among companies people working
Speaker 1: at Amazon, j Potle, Starbucks, kind of all these chain
Speaker 1: or very popular American companies. So I'm also really interested
Speaker 1: in seeing whether you know, this will affect generally surely,
Speaker 1: if this is going to carry on like in the
Speaker 1: next decade or so. Terry when reporter at Vox, thank
Speaker 1: you very much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm Auscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't
Speaker 1: forget that. For today's big news stories. You can check
Speaker 1: me on in the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday.
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