For Gen Z-Ers, Work Is Now More Depressing Than Unemployment
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
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Gen ZWork CultureMental Health
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Gen Z
Work Culture
Mental Health
The article discusses how Gen Z finds work more depressing than unemployment, sparking a discussion on the entitled attitude of younger generations and the changing job market.
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Nov 6, 2025 at 9:56 AM EST
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Younger generations have always had an easier time at literally everything. The complaint about AI culling resumes discounts the fact that it used to be a human that would just throw them away. At least with the AI you have a chance of saying the right thing to get past that level. Depending on the job you're going for that might be the first test to show if you're capable of doing the job.
It's kind of like when employers put on time trackers on your workstation or other such things too ensure you're staying busy and productive. I honestly don't believe that it is actually about tracking whether employees are busy because any employee you would want to work for you would know how to bypass that or make it seem like you're productive when you're not. Those who are not intelligent enough to do that aren't worth keeping around.
There is some truth to both sides of this. Older generations are more critical of younger generations but younger generations also have more advantages and tend to not work as hard.
One of the biggest problems that I've seen with younger people is that they immediately default to asking someone else instead of bothering to do any perfunctory level of research themselves. It's like they're trained to only phone a friend and never learn and research for themselves. Because when they have to learn and research for themselves it's hard and they give up and they complain that it's too hard. Then of course I'm considered passive aggressive when I copy and paste the link to the documentation that answers their question.
They grew up in a world where they did not have to value anyone's time. They had instant access to anyone through some sort of messaging system so they never had to learn to be self-sufficient or at least attempt to be self-sufficient before they go and engage someone else. That propagates everywhere. That basic attitude says things like finding a job is hard without realizing it's probably easier if you just put in the effort to learn what the AI was looking for.
What's closer to the truth is that each generation hopes to make life easier for the subsequent generations. The effect of that is all of the things that we complain about. More than one thing can be true at the same time. As things get easier people get lazier. It is only a natural thing. That can be demonstrated over and over in society. That can be demonstrated over the generations. So what was true 2,500 years ago still is true today.