Gen Z can’t find work because boomer bosses are afraid of “work-life balance,” survey reveals

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If you ask company bosses what they think of the young people of Gen Z, you rarely hear good things. Work ethics are particularly lacking.

Where does this statement come from and who is talking about whom? In July 2024, the website intelligent.com surveyed around 1,200 company bosses about what they thought about recent graduates. This refers to graduates of US colleges between 2020 and 2023.

They all belong to the so-called Generation Z, i.e. people who were born since 1996 and are currently completing their (university) education. The company bosses probably still belong to the boomers of the post-war period or to Gen X (1965 to 1979).

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Is Gen Z’s lack of work ethic a hindrance?

What do Boomer and Gen-X bosses think? Broken down, the survey results can be summarized as follows:

  • Only 53 percent feel that the graduates are at least somewhat prepared for the job market. Around 40 percent see major deficiencies.
  • 70 percent of bosses cite work ethics and communication skills as the main points of criticism. About half cite excessive demands as a reason for criticism.
  • The situation is also getting worse. Those born before the pandemic are faring better.
  • 9 out of 10 bosses try to avoid hiring graduates from 2020 to 2023.

    • Who is to blame for the situation that the bosses perceive as misery? When asked who was to blame (multiple answers possible), respondents pointed to culture in general (60 percent) and then, in the following, about 45 to 50 percent always pointed to parents, the pandemic and the education system.

    Challenges and different solutions

    So is Gen Z simply no good in the workplace? No, no one should make it that easy. Because, as experts from our Spanish-speaking colleagues at genbeta make clear, there are often simply differences in attitudes to work between the older generations and Gen Z or even Gen Y (Millennials). Professor of Communication Diane Gayeski from Ithaca College sums it up like this in the survey:

    Nobody is ready for the current job market. It has changed so dramatically recently […]Young people communicate and solve problems differently than their 50-year-old bosses – but they can do it.

    Today’s 20 to 40 year olds actively see or have experienced what older people have suffered: increased mental illnesses due to stress at work, little free time, and so on.

    The way people deal with the challenges varies greatly and leads to misunderstandings. Younger people place more value on balancing work and leisure time (via Gruender). In addition, they often look for meaning in their actions, define life goals differently and see high income and advancement as less important. This can quickly be interpreted as a lack of work ethic, which in turn causes the trust of boomers and Gen X to crumble.

    This also explains at least in part the results of a survey from the United Kingdom, which we discussed in the following article: Generation Z is often late, wastes working time and is frequently absent due to mental health problems, surveys show.

    By the way, someone who doesn’t think much of working from home – no matter who would like to work there – is the US billionaire Elon Musk (Gen X). In an interview, he once expressed himself very negatively about the alternative that has been popular since the Covid pandemic. Elon Musk considers working from home not only unproductive, but also “morally reprehensible”.

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