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