Gen Z: Generation Quit? and other Generation Myths Debunked

April 3, 2024

By Nikki Wooten, IFPA Program and Education Manager

This article is not about “quiet quitting.”

While there has always been an audience for the “ways of work” articles and think pieces, the combination of our current digital, quick share culture along with the global sea change caused by the pandemic, the conversation on the future of work has gone mainstream. Many of the hot topics have centered on Gen Z as the youngest generation currently entering the workforce.

They’ve been blamed or credited for inventing the “quiet quitting” trend. They’ve been dubbed “too sensitive” or inept at dealing with people face to face. They’ve also been labeled as less loyal and thought to be comfortable leaving jobs if it doesn’t meet their standards.

Every myth has a little bit of truth and probably a lot of misinformation. Let’s take a look at what is really going on with these younger generations. When we talk about Gen Z we’re talking about those born from mid-to-late 1990s to the early 2010s. They follow the Millennials who account for the early 1980s-late 1990s births. Gen Z is quickly become the largest generation in the workforce with many of them entering for the first time right at the beginning of the pandemic.

Similar to Millennials who were entering the workforce during the 2008 housing crisis, Gen Z faced a wide-spread economic catastrophe that left them, in many cases, the first to be let go. In April 2020, as Gen Z students were graduating into the workforce, the U.S. was seeing at 14.7% unemployment rate at the beginning of the recession. Gen Z faced a 27% unemployment rate during that time.

Even as the job market rebounded, Gen Z was the slowest to improve, getting squeezed out by new graduates and older, more experienced employees coming back into the workforce. It would make sense that someone experiencing this amount of economic uncertainty may not trust the labor market will provide for them. This has informed the label that they’re less loyal, and Deloitte’s study has showed that 40% of Gen Zs would like to leave their jobs within two years and 35% of Gen Zs would leave their job without another job lined up.

It's good to know, however, that this is a 13 point improvement over the last year and there has been a smaller improvement (21% to 23%) of those Gen Zs who plan to stay beyond 5 years in their current roles. With the amount of job changes over the last year and the improvement on reported retention it may indicate that the Gen Z loyalty factor may have more to do with job fit and satisfaction.

This is important to keep in mind because retention is not just an employee’s job. Much of what makes a team member feel supported, productive and valued is based on their interactions with their employer. If you are a company seeing a lot of turnover with Gen Z employees, it may be worthwhile to ask your teams what they’re not getting from your company. While the news may lead you to believe that Gen Z doesn’t like to work in person, or doesn’t want to work hard, the data shows otherwise.

According to Deloitte, Gen Z is concerned most about cost of living, climate change, unemployment, mental health, and sexual harassment. Knowing that Gen Z came of age during the MeToo movement provides a lot of important context for why they are so concerned about what their experience may be like at their place of work. These concerns drive a number of other important factors for Gen Z.

For example, according to the report, cost of living concern is so high that 43% of Gen Z surveyed had taken on another job (part time or full time) in addition to their primary job. It also informs their interest and support of a hybrid or remote workplace option with over a third reporting it helps them save money and up to 15% claiming to have moved further away from their place of work to save more money.

Cost of living fears are also having a compounding affect on Gen Z who already have significant concerns about mental health. 32% of Gen Z responders indicated that work life balance was a top reason to choose work at their current location. That may make older generations concerned but almost 40% of Millennials reported the same thing! While Gen Z may have been tagged as the generation in search of work life balance, this is a need that is consistently rising to the surface across all generations.

This is not the only way that Gen Z has gotten incorrectly labeled as leading the way on certain demands or worklife trends. For example, quiet quitting.

While the media has largely named Gen Z as the inventor of quiet quitting (a.k.a. acting your wage), the concept of doing the “bare minimum” to step back and achieve better worklife balance, there is evidence that the concept is perhaps as old as work itself.

An article in the LA Times shows a short story from Moby Dick author, Herman Melville, including the anti-motivational catchphrase “I would prefer not to” spoken by a character politely refusing to do work tasks set by his manager.

The 1990s were rife with examples of this “coasting counterculture” as the article referenced including “The Big Lebowski”, “Wayne’s World”, “Clerks” and the ever famous “Office Space”. These films are older than many of the Gen Zs entering the work force, and were beloved, celebrated and created by, you guessed it, Generation X.

So if you were born from 1965-1980 and you employ Gen Zs, Millennials or any other generations. It’s always a good time to think about how we can better understand our employees, their unique experiences even in the face of shared economic upheaval, and think about how we can work to make this industry one where up and coming talent from all generations want to work.

Gen Z: Generation Quit? and other Generation Myths Debunked

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