[COFFEE] 20min "article" about Gen Z and Jobs

There is also a video but I dono’t want to give too many links to them. :smiley:

It has begun also here in CH.
Maybe it’s just a Tamedia thing that they start to push this theory around.

On a side note, 20min doesn’t have an “impressum” page on the homepage. Isn’t that a legal requirement?

Lol, typical 20 min article :slight_smile:

A large part of this generation Z is not even working as they are too young or still studying. I also don’t see how this should work, currently lots of people already struggle to keep their living standards with 100% salary.

That’s maybe the dream of generation Z, but the reality looks different unless you have rich parents.

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But I think what might be the case is that the younger generation does not feel like it owes the boss anything. If they feel lazy, they will often call in sick. If the boss asks to go the extra mile, they will try not to do that. If the boss threatens to fire them, they will look for another job. This is all very anecdotal, though, might be false. I see my gf complain often. She never calls in sick and tries to help others, but she notices that over the years, the people she works with, they call in sick all the time, leave as soon as possible, get fired often, get replaced with younger people who care even less.

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Working mentality has changed, that is a fact. It was already the case before, but people had no “reason” to complain. Covid helped to open the eyes on what is currently important.

I am not a Gen Z myself but my requirements regarding jobs had clearly changed. In terms of comfort (and also money wise), I will prefer working from home one day more and will choose the company that give me this flexibility when/if the job remain the same. Working in the IT field helps, but lots of IT company are still very conservative. This need to change.

I think the article is more to express the will of what young people want regarding work. They was also this “4 days week” experiment few months ago in some companies here in Switzerland. Seems that the opinion are a little mitigated, but the trend is actually very present.

Work is important, but (more) time is crucial.
I always say « what’s the point of having a lot of money if you don’t have time to spend it » = know how to make money reserves, but don’t forget to live in the moment.

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I don’t get the AHV issue though.
Part-time working at 60% means someone else need to work the 40% remaining, so the AHV should get paid the same. If not, it means the job wasn’t optimal and 100% of the job can be done in 60% of the time, which has nothing to do with Gen Z (or whatever) being lazy but maybe more with the previous generation that was wasting time during work. If you think this way, then the previous generation are the problem.
In reality is probably an issue of costs and jobs disappearing.

The article should maybe talk about FIRE people instead :smiley:

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Why shouldn’t it work. With some education you should be able to get a job that pays 6-7k per month. Take 80% of that, and you are still somewhere around 5k. That should be plenty to still live comfortably.

The median net salary in Switzerland is between 5k and 6k. Of course some will earn more and some will earn less.

I also agree that 5k should be enough to live a comfortable life, however most people are not frugal at all, especially the new generations are heavy consumers and 5k won’t be enough for them to live a comfortable life in their definition.

Many people struggle now with their salary and I don’t see why generation Z should be any different, especially if they plan to work less and all the prices increasing, but the salary not increasing at the same rate.

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Work is a contract between two parties on par. You owe the company work, the company ows you money. You do not owe your boss a heart attack or a burn out. You also do not owe your boss tolerance for treating you badly or for enabling a toxic work environment. You get to take your sick days without feeling bad about it. Your boss won’t give a sh… about firing you whenever he likes, why should you give a sh… about quitting whenever you like?

Thank God it’s 2022 :grin:!!

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Maybe two reasons.

  1. They don’t want to have kids. Life without kids costs less.

  2. They can’t afford to buy real estate, so they may not want to bother saving up for collateral. If your gross income is 60’000 CHF, you can afford a 300’000 CHF mortgage loan. Even for a couple, if they both get 300k and save 100k, that’s still only 800k. In big cities you will struggle to find something worth buying.

So if you have a gross income of 5’000 CHF per month, that gives you a disposable income of 4’000 CHF per month. That’s how much I spend currently and I can’t complain about the level of my life.

So to reiterate, I think if you don’t plan to save or to have kids, 5’000 CHF gross income per month is enough to lead a comfortable life.

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I’m interested to hear about your experiences, because I keep searching for this elusive job that pays 6K+ and allows for an 80% that is actually an 80% (I can work part time doing what I do, but the workload wouldn’t diminish so I would just be paid less for the same work for the luxury to have more flexibility in my schedule (one day “off”)).

I don’t know if it is due to my field of work (civil/environmental engineering), my own personality (need to set boundaries) or just because I’ve just dealt with bad employers up to now (which I have) and just need to find a better work environment.

All feedback will be welcome.

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Actually studies tend to show that overall productivity is not decreasing much with a day off. You just become more efficient at what you do because you have more rest.

So yeah, actually for an employer it is interesting to employ someone on 80% and actually get a nearly 100% return.

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Sure, but I think it’s nice to see some dedication and pride in the work. Otherwise, if you show poor quality, expect poor remuneration. Also, I think sometimes you can only learn and grow by going the extra mile, sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone will help you to grow. So just doing the bare minimum is a short-sighted strategy.

That’s why it’s popular for fresh graduates to join big corpo as juniors and to grind long hours, to gain experience, learn skills, get that valuable CV entry. If you don’t do that, you will struggle to advance to higher paid positions.

If you’re really sick, then sure. If you just feel lazy, then I don’t know. Employment is a game of mutual respect. Either you don’t trust each other, the boss controls your time, and you just do the bare minimum to not give reasons to get fired, or the boss trusts that you will give your reasonable best. I’m sure there is a whole spectrum of companies going from one extreme to the other.

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I’m sure this depends on the type of job. You’re surely referring to an office job, all day in front of the PC, with multiple hours every day spent on idling and coffee. But I don’t see how a doctor would get the same number of patients diagnosed in smaller amount of time. Or a cashier in Lidl, or a warehouse worker, or a builder, a driver, a barber, a masseuse, etc etc.

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Not only but there most people can imagine it the quickest.

Example of the cashier : It has been shown that after some hours, the cashier is not able to process the client as quickly as before. So at some point you will need more people to process the same amount of people. Same on a construction site, after some hours, the productivity will drop significantly.
Plus advantage : less sick leave, less accidents (or professional borne sicknesses like tendinitis etc.), less mistakes, so overall productivity is still there.

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That’s not only a problem of generation Z, that started at least one generation earlier.

I never said that you can’t have a comfortable life like this, I said it’s not a comfortable life according to their definition. I wouldn’t compare you to the average joe in terms of spending money. The average joe lives paycheck to paycheck even without having any kids.

I’m in my early 30s and most of my friends don’t have any savings or very small savings and earn more than 5’000 net a month and once their car breaks down or any other unexpected emergency arises, they basically live from bread and water to cover the expenses.

If you don’t save anything, you are up for a bad time once you retire.

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This! I can recommend the book “The Productivity Project”. The author did an experiment where he worked only 20 hours in one week and 90 hours in another week and he noticed that his output barely increased in the 90 hours week.

It’s called Parkinson’s Law:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
– Cyril Northcote Parkinson

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I don’t think many young people really care about retirement. On one hand, it is far away for them so “they’ll have time to think about it when it’s there” and on the other hand, many think they won’t get AHV/BVG and can get into a “screw it” state of mind, expecting society to bail them out one way or the other (or just expecting to live as destitutes anyway so who cares since “you can’t save enough for retirement and still afford a decent standard of living (which might involve an iPhone and other luxuries) anyway”. One bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

All of that is part of the problem, of course, but I think we won’t get out of said problem without revising our expectations regarding what expenses we can afford (not speaking of standards of living, one can get a decent standard on low expenses by choosing the right activities and necessities in their life).

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I don’t know what is exactly generation Z, but the situation that young adults don’t want to have children very early exists in Europe I think since baby boomers, so at least 3 generations back.

There is nothing to worry about, this is just a normal cycle of life.

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I’d say: If your company pays mediocre salaries, you’ve got the right to deliver mediocre work. Or to put it more positively: to just take it easy.

Gen Z (if it exists) has improved our attitude toward life (YOLO :sunglasses:!), work and the balance between life and work.

Well ok, the great job market might have helped too :grin:

Again, this maybe applies to office workers who cover a certain area and they can deliver their work with varying level of quality / detail, or maybe their workload varies between 20% and 100% (but they’re hired for 100%, for the “peak season”).

I will agree that it is perhaps pointless if employers keep you in the office if there is nothing to do, or they assign you some bullshit tasks in the periods between the really essential ones. In such a situation, they take advantage of the “sunken cost”. They already agreed to pay you X money for 40 hours per week, and they are gonna get these 40 hours from you, even if you don’t have enough crucial tasks to fill 40 hours every week.

BUT, I think this doesn’t apply to self-employed people or people with stake in the game. That is, for people who benefit from going the extra mile. Once they’re finished with their work, they can support elsewhere. There is always something to do, but I think in big corporations it’s hard to get the grasp of what is to be done next and by whom.

The optimal number of hours worked in a day surely varies from person to person. Sure, you will be the sharpest in your first hour and then your performance will slowly decline. But opting for a one-size fits all 4-day work week for the entire economy feels like a step too far for me.

Perhaps we should try to make employment contracts more flexible, with less overhead, encouraging employers to hire for less than 100%. I don’t see why there has to be a cap on the number of hours worked. If the workers have enough bargaining power, they will only work as many hours as they want, regardless of the maximum. And if the employers don’t have additional costs related to hiring additional people, they will also be more willing to hire part-timers.

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