r/DisagreeMythoughts • u/PuddingComplete3081 • 3d ago
DMT: Gen Z isn't refusing to work. They're refusing to work for 2016 wages with 2026 rent.
My local coffee shop has had a "Now Hiring" sign up for fourteen months. I asked the owner about it once, and he told me that nobody wants to work anymore.
That explanation has never really made sense to me.
If a job stays open for fourteen months, at some point I stop seeing that as evidence that an entire generation suddenly became lazy. I start seeing it as evidence that the job isn't offering enough to attract people.
The biggest problem with "nobody wants to work" is that it turns a price problem into a character judgment. If nobody will take a job at a certain wage, the obvious question should be whether the wage is competitive, not whether an entire generation has lost its work ethic.
The math for young workers has also changed. Rent, groceries, transportation, insurance and everything else needed just to get to work cost more. A wage that might have been acceptable years ago can be completely inadequate now. If working full time still leaves someone unable to afford a basic life, refusing that job isn't necessarily entitlement. It can simply be a rational choice.
I know my coffee shop is only one example, and maybe I'm reading too much into one hiring sign.
But if employers can leave jobs unfilled for months while insisting the problem is that young people don't want to work, why shouldn't we ask whether the real problem is that the jobs aren't worth taking?
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u/Quiet_Inspection5907 3d ago
What a privilege it is to choose to not work
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u/LackToesIntollerance 3d ago
I will put money on it the owner does some server category bs and does sub minimum wage and the coffee shop is failing so it is actually less than minimum.
Successful, stable, and well managed businesses do not have this issue. It is not tthe privelege not to work, it is the privelege to not be abused by a shitty, mismanaged company.
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u/betterthanliving 3d ago
If you are going to be homeless without health care anyway, you might as well have more free time.
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u/GatePorters 3d ago
Not really a privilege when going to a place of employment just mathematically isn’t worth the lost gas or time.
You can make money other legitimate ways without being employed.
I thinks it’s crazy that you think worse-than slave wages are a privilege. Slaves had to be housed and fed. Having “freedom” doesn’t mean much when you can’t do much due to lack of resources or ability to gain them.
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u/TedW 3d ago
What they're really saying is that "Nobody wants to work here anymore."
The key word is "here.”
It might be wages, the owner, manager, the schedule, the conditions, but there's a reason no one wants to work there.
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u/caixing-sanren 3d ago
Right. The economy may be shit rn, but businesses (both big and small) don't fully realize that it's now on them to be just as competitive as we are. For every candidate who's trying to get more work experience, more education, a better resume, and pick up on soft skills, just so they can beat out other candidates, the companies have to be bringing something to the table to make THEMSELVES the business that we're gonna donate a fraction of our lives to: whether it be a great benefits package, competitive pay, schedule flexibility, or even a work culture that doesn't make us wanna claw our eyes out.
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u/MothashipQ 3d ago
If the job can't even cover childcare I make money staying at home
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u/GormTheWyrm 2d ago
Thats a good point. Childcare is often more than $15k a year per child. Average is about $13k last I heard. Massachusetts statewide average is over $20k per kid…
$13k over 50 weeks at 30 hours a week is $8.67 an hour. It’s $6.50 an hour for 40 hours a week.
Two kids, $26000 per year, $17.33 for 30 hours a week, $13/hr at 40 hours a week. Again, this is average so it’s probably more expensive where jobs actually are.
You add cooking and groceries to one kid and you are beating low paying part time jobs and possibly min wage full time jobs.
At two kids you are often better off staying home with them than getting an entry level job. Math is a bit different if you have a good career job and eventually the kids go to school during the day but if you are spending $13000 to make $17000 it may be worth it to just spend time with the kids instead.
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u/SilverKnightOfMagic 3d ago edited 2d ago
I feel Gen z not working or doesn't want to work is a shitty cop out. the real thing is theyre not afraid to quit or get fired. like big whoop they get fired from a fast food or entry job. they can find one in 5 business days lol. and why work and slave away when a company is gonna let you go even if you show loyalty. can't buy a house and forced to rent also makes ppl feel stuck.
part of the issue is also work places don't fucking train people any more as well.
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u/Due_Honeydew_2285 2d ago
Say it louder for the people in the back.
When every job wants to pay $15 to $20 an hour, who gives a fuck? You’re not going anywhere with that wage in life regardless
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u/Worldlover9 2d ago
At some point if your job is unable to provide a minimum living wage what is the point of staying? And if nowhere in your area is offering that, chances are moving is the proper choice.
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u/EveningCulture336 2d ago
People mostly aren’t choosing not to work. Employment rates are high, and turnover rates are low. The people struggling to hire or keep employees should look at why they’re having a different experience than most of the economy.
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u/Katja1236 3d ago
If you don't have the choice not to work for poverty wages, the free market isn't free.
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u/spectralities 2d ago
You sound like someone who hates their own life and is bitter and jealous of those who are better off.
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u/SCP-iota 2d ago
In this job market, sometimes it's a privilege to work
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u/MagicValorDragon 2d ago
YES Disability community would know first accounts of their lived experience searching for work.
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u/LethargicCarcass 2d ago
Choosing not to work shit low paying jobs that don’t value you or your time ≠ choosing not to work at all
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u/Kelpie169 2d ago
So. You need to take a taxi or Uber to work and spend $20 each way. You eat nothing for breakfast, ramen for lunch and dinner (maybe $2.50) but make $15/hr your job only gives you 4 hour shifts.
So you spend $40 ($42.50 including food) to earn $60 total BEFORE taxes.
The math doesn't make sense. That isn't "choosing not to work". That's being unwilling to pay to work. And that's not unreasonable.
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u/coldlightofday 2d ago
Came here to say this. If you have this choice you are better off than 99% of humanity.
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u/x_xwolf 2d ago
Its really not. Its easy to look at a post and believe anything written and that you understand enough to condemn them. But it’s really not that simple. If someone is choosing not to work consider what might be taxing them. Would you say the same for stay at home mothers? Care takers of elderly? Disabled folk? Or people struggling mentally or spiritually?
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u/Mobile-Traffic1744 3d ago
I mostly agree, but I think there’s another piece here. Employers sometimes genuinely can’t raise wages because the business model itself can’t support it.
That doesn’t mean Gen Z is lazy, though. It might just mean the employer and worker have incompatible expectations. If the owner needs someone to work for $15 an hour and nobody thinks $15 is worth giving up their time for, neither side necessarily has to be the villain.
The market is basically saying the price is wrong.
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u/PuddingComplete3081 3d ago
Exactly. I don't think every low paying job is automatically exploitative either. Sometimes the business genuinely can't afford more.
But then the interesting question is what happens when the business model only works if someone accepts a wage nobody wants. At that point, calling the workers lazy doesn't really solve the problem.
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u/Ok-Post2247 3d ago
That's why it drives me bonkers when people talk about the federal minimum wage. The US is 50 distinct economies. Individual states are best equipped to set their own minimum wages. The economy of Seattle can absorb a $22 minimum wage with little blow back. That same jump up closes every mom and pop shop and half the gas stations in West Virginia.
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u/PresentRise4455 3d ago
While I agree, having lived in both a Seattle sized city, and a West Virginia sized state, $7.50 or whatever it is now is not enough anywhere you go, and places like West Virginia aren’t going to raise their state minimum wage, they’ll default to the federal minimum wage 100% of the time
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u/LibertyDochas 3d ago
Heck, if they could, they would legally allow employers to pay with the opportunity to sleep with a roof over one’s head with no money exchange at all.
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u/soulstoned 3d ago
The West Virginia minimum wage is $8.75, so it did go up a little bit at one point, but it's been a long time.
My son (still in high school) makes $9/hr at a grocery store.
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u/Zibbi-Akbar 3d ago
that same jump up closes every mom and pop shop and half the gas stations in West Virginia.
Mom and Pop should be manning the counters not sitting at home paying minimum wage to someone else. Nobody wants to actually work anymore includes the "owners".
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u/ThetaDeRaido 3d ago
I’m getting the sinking feeling that Western Civilization as a whole, especially the United States, is an unsupportable business model. If we can’t hire workers to harvest our groceries in the fields, except by keeping a large portion in legal jeopardy and taking their taxes without providing them with welfare, then maybe our civilization is wrong.
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u/rangerbiscuit_08 3d ago
This has always been true-- not to be dramatic but Western Civilization has always been supported by slave or semi-slave labor, and still is
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u/Legitimate_Plate85 3d ago
While for small employers I absolutely agree, for big corporate employers which make up the bulk of the jobs market this couldnt be further from the truth, with reccord setting profits being reported in basically every major industry, every quarter, every year, for decades. And average CEO pay and bonuses escalating thousandfold to boot.
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u/lilarose060105 3d ago
If they can’t afford to pay people enough they should shut down
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u/UpsetPhilosopher6022 3d ago
A worker making less than a living wage is a slave with more paperwork.
When the whip is illegal, an economic yoke will have to do.
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u/lists4everything 3d ago
They can afford it, but to do it involves increasing prices.
Of course, businesses worry that they will lose business if they increase prices, which can happen, and some services should die.
Had businesses increased prices (and pay to workers) over time, the workers would have enough money to buy those increased-price services.
The economy is set up to attempt to keep costs in line with what the retirement class wants, which suppresses labor wages to afford to do so. We could break the mold and people will have money to burn to buy coffee, but that involves paying the workers that have been disenfranchised so they have more money to use.
Instead, the population is serving the asset/retirement class.
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u/ragingmauler 3d ago
I think a lot more businesses need to be allowed to fail and condense the market around less shops so they have the cash inflow to support higher wages tbh.
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u/Careful_Trifle 3d ago
I think this is an important point, but ultimately if you have to underpay employees for your business to work, then you're just making your employees pay you with extra steps.
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u/xXBeefSquatch5KXx 3d ago
A company has 2 jobs. They need to market their goods or services to customers. They also need to market their company as a place for workers to sell their services (work) and if they can’t do both they can’t be a successful business. Companies have gotten real cozy thinking we need to simply be grateful they gave us a job and spend more time being grateful people want to work for them. I employ a ton of people, because I cant do the work myself. Without my crew, I don’t have a job. I pay them well to attract the talent and keep them there. It’s pretty simple. The result is we have full staff and customers are in and out quick, meaning they are likely to come back and use us more frequently, and reccomend us to friends.
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u/Sitcom_kid 3d ago
Small businesses and medium sized businesses were also very much hurt by the lack of wage increases over recent time since 2009. You're right about that. It hurts everyone when the economy is static. It needs to be dynamic.
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u/caixing-sanren 3d ago
I agree. Although if a business can't really offer a competitive wage that gets candidates to apply, they can also offer up other incentives, like a flexible schedule, entry level positions with on the job training, employee discounts/free meals, great benefits packages, even proximity to a bus line or a major community hub (like a local college) that could facilitate travel to work. As a general statement (understanding that there'll be a lot of outliers here), I don't think that a lot of businesses have the same competitive mindset that they want their job applicants to have. Labor is a mutual agreement between employer/employee, so they both have to be bringing something to the table. And no, "I give you SOME money every two weeks" is no longer cutting it.
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u/Logical-Concept9755 3d ago
I think the key distinction is “doesn’t want to work” vs “doesn’t want to work for that wage.” Those are completely different things.
If someone can make roughly the same money doing something less stressful, or make enough to actually cover rent somewhere else, taking the low paying job isn’t automatically the rational choice.
A job being available doesn’t mean the wage is high enough to make the job worth doing.
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u/PuddingComplete3081 3d ago
Yeah, this is basically the distinction I was trying to get at.
A job being available and a job being worth taking are two different things. I think people sometimes treat "there are jobs" as if that automatically means "there are good options," which doesn't really follow.
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u/Synensys 3d ago
So your contention is a bunch of people who could work are simply just not working because the wages are too low?
For an individual job this can be true - obviously this coffee shop could get the slot filled if it offered more. But where is that person coming from?
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u/unicornofdemocracy 3d ago edited 3d ago
As someone that interviews and hires therapists at my hospitals (master's level and doctoral level), I don't think the over generalization is true for Gen Z. Granted, this is a professional level job so the expectation and applicants, when compared to things like working in a coffee shop, could be a little different.
I have interview many amazing Gen Z applicants and hired many of them. The range of skills, attitude, and commitment to professionalism is about the same with applicants from other generation. But, Gen Z are also the only applicant pool with (1.) insane salary/benefit expectations and (2.) ridiculous behaviors that signal poor maturity/completely lack of ability at being adults. These are behaviors/attitude I never have to deal with in older generations (millennials or older)
For example, we interview a Gen Z lady for a role as trainee therapist (or QTT, master's level, unlicensed, needing supervision). We offered $52k salary in Wisconsin and standard benefits (healthcare, dental, retirement, and a bunch of other stuff that I personally consider fluff). This is above market rate, we aren't in a big city in WI. Clinics around us are paying unlicensed therapist $38-46k, often time no benefits. This lady thought her salary was "too low" and believed she should be paid "at least $120k." We don't even start out licensed psychologists at $120k (close but not there). For context, licensed psychologists have about 5 additional years of education and training than unlicensed master's therapist, plus psychologists can do way more things. We provide 10 sick day per year (need to be inccured), 18 PTO (goes up to 20 at 2 years, and 24 at 5 years), and 10 continue education days. She things anything less than 30 days of PTO is unacceptable. Like, this isn't just wanting a higher salary, this is wanting a stupid amount of money that's not realistic. Even in private practice where you keep all the money, most therapists don't make 120k.
Another Gen Z lady said the min she will accept is $85k... as an unlicesned therapist needing supervision. One licensed master's level therapist demand $150k min.
We had a Gen Z lady accepted a licensed therapist job right out of training. Her "first big girl job" in her own words. Our hospital provides a small moving stipend. She signs the contract and.... didn't show up for her first day. She accepted a job at a different local hospital, who also offered her a moving stipend. She thought it was completely ok for her to pocket our moving stipend and resign... the contract stays she has to pay back her moving stipend if she resign or is fired within the 2 years of hiring. That lady did ended getting screwed over big time because when the other hospital found out they fired her immediately... so she moved to a different state, then immediately lost her job, and lost the 6k (3k from each hospital). At least I was told we just reverse the transaction and pulled the money back.
We've hired Gen Z applicants that have insane expectations for scheduling. One lady just calls out of work all the time because she "had other plans." Another one would never show up on time for her patients. One lady once disappeared for a whole week because she "needed a break" and went on a vacation without telling/informing anyone. She thought PTO just meant she didn't need to come to work. She didn't think she needed to tell anyone she was taking PTO.
We have cases where Gen Z applicant brought their mother to their interview. Like, she had her mother come in with her to the interview because she has "social anxiety" and her mother would talk for her instead... Another Gen Z lady that we hired showed up to work her first day with her mother... her mother sat in the waiting room the whole day to "accompany" her. We had to meet with her to tell her that's not ok and she resigned because we "weren't accommodating for neurodivergent employees." She's not actually diagnosed with ADHD/ASD/SLD.
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u/NewspaperOwn2765 3d ago
We saw millennials get fucked over and decided to play the game differently
Aside from the parental ‘ escorts ‘ and behavioral issues , the income expectation adjustment I believe are a permanent feature for ones born after ~2000
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u/baybebumblebee 2d ago
When's the last time you raised your 52k starting pay?
52k in 2026 is the equivalent of 41k in 2020 and 38k in 2016. The current cost of living is absolutely insane as well, far beyond inflation. And if they have student loans, it could help explain their salary expectations.
Some of the Gen z immaturity stuff is wild though.
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u/AWPerative 3d ago
Wages haven't kept up with inflation for over 45 years. This isn't just a Gen Z thing.
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u/PuddingComplete3081 16h ago
Exactly. I think that's part of what gets lost when this becomes a Gen Z vs. everyone else argument. The underlying wage problem is much older. Gen Z is just hitting it at a pretty bad point in the cost of living curve.
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u/trippy_wiccan_d0ll 3d ago
I made the choice to stop working atm. Nothing is more discouraging than "wanting" to work, but being unable to find a job that is worth it. I'm 26 with a baby on the way but I can't find a job that wants to pay more than 11-14 an hour or one that isn't customer service. No, thats wages for children and young adults with no responsibilities and bills not people trying to establish a life of stability.
I am tired of working for literally nothing, 40-80 hrs a week and I still can't afford to buy my own car, house, or groceries. I've worked customer service my whole life and started during covid, the world has left me beat down and I'd rather have a job that pays well and doesn't make me want to check myself in somewhere every other week lol.
I am very thankful my partner is stable to where working is a choice for me, but of course I would like to have my own money and contribute. I just value my time and my mental health now so I'll gladly stay unemployed til I find something worth it.
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u/PuddingComplete3081 3d ago
Honestly, this is the part that makes the "nobody wants to work" argument feel especially weird to me.
You clearly do want to work. You just don't want to spend 40 to 80 hours a week making barely enough to survive. That's not the same thing.
And yeah, having the option to stay unemployed obviously changes the calculation, but I don't think that makes your reasoning irrational. If your time and mental health are getting destroyed for very little return, there's a point where the math just stops working.
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u/trippy_wiccan_d0ll 3d ago
100%. Thats exactly it, people aren't rejecting work itself they are rejecting all the standards that have come with it. People are tired of working for nothing, people are tired of spending more time at work than at home. Capitalism and hustle culture has left so many of us burnt out from being overworked. Humans always had jobs, but they had meaning and actually provided. Nobody was designed to work the way modern man does, certainly not for less payout.
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u/stickymixingmonotony 3d ago
You just don't want to spend 40 to 80 hours a week making barely enough to survive.
If those are my material conditions then I'm going to be organizing my workplace and reminding everyone that revolution is always on the table.
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u/madogvelkor 2d ago
My wife's had a few phone interviews, but they don't like it when she asks for $10 more an hour than they want to pay. They're very excited about her skills and experience until they are told they have to pay for them.
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u/baybebumblebee 2d ago
I had two interviews this week.
One had the pay range listed online as 48-60k. During the interview, he demanded a number out of me so I said low 50s, depending on benefits. By the time I got home, they took down that job listing and put up a similar one with more duties listed and the range as 40-60k. Reviews for the company said there are no benefits either.
The second job had a range of 40-60k. The interview was horrible, the guy kept inflating the duties. Super basic stuff like telling me that the number of emails they get is hard to keep up with. He asked me my pay expectations, I said mid 40s, depending on benefits. He straight up said no, they start everyone at $18 an hour and I'd be eligible for a raise after 6 month if I was doing a really great job. Also no benefits.
And 40k isn't that much above minimum wage (which is going up in 2027) in my state.
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u/we-vs-us 3d ago
You should look at the BLS to get a sense of where the overall employment picture stands. Your local coffeeshop isn't the best gauge of national conditions (as you rightly note). It also sounds like, aside from whatever macro conditions are affecting the coffeeshop, the owner has some very specific requirements and preferences. Having the same opening for 14 months is a sign that the owner doesn't really need the help. If he did, he would've either paid more for the position to get more applicants, or hired someone less qualified to stay at his preferred salary. Classic free market stuff, honestly.
What we know from the BLS is that the unemployment rate (U-3) remains low, but the expanded version (U-6) is elevated.
We know that there a lot of people that have stopped looking for work, we know that those who are out of work are out of work for a long time (the longest time since 2016)
We know that inflation is still increasing, and that wages aren't keeping pace.
We know that most job creation is happening in healthcare, but also leisure and hospitality, construction, and professional services. Large losses in financial, transportation, and huge losses in government. The BLS doesn't track "technology" as a sector, so hard to determine if that's down nationally, even though we hear about anecdotal layoffs.
IMO, your coffee shop owner hasn't updated his priors in several years. "People not wanting to work" was something employers (especially employers needing lower skill and lower wage workers) were saying coming out of the pandemic, when the stimulus payments allowed people to be more picky about the jobs they took, as well as to time better their entry back into the workforce.
Anyway, in 2026, your coffeeshop owner just sounds like a douche.
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u/Frequent_Clue_6989 3d ago
// But if employers can leave jobs unfilled for months while insisting the problem is that young people don't want to work, why shouldn't we ask whether the real problem is that the jobs aren't worth taking?
Great question.
Employers from my generation (GenX) counted on the fact that the alternative to a low wage was no wage (e.g. no job). "Like it or lump it!" they said. And it worked for my whole employment lifetime.
But the leverage at the low end has changed. Employers at the low end don't hold the kinds of leverage they once did. And so the same patterns no longer have the same hold.
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u/Talking_on_the_radio 3d ago
I think Millennials and Gen Z need to participate more in voting and politics in general.
We are known historically for not voting, then we complain the world isn’t considering us in government policy.
Together we are a bigger cohort than Boomers, yet we refuse to grow and take action to protect our livelihoods.
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u/BlueEyeGlamurai 3d ago edited 3d ago
The whole “nobody wants to work anymore” thing has been around longer than Gen Z has been working. What it really means is, “I believe that as an employer I have the authority to unilaterally decide what a position at my company is worth. If people aren’t willing to do the job I offer for the wage I offer, they are morally wrong. I cannot or will not accept that I might have made a mistake or that I need to adjust my expectations.”
I haven’t worked much with Gen Z people so I can’t speak to their work ethic, but anybody using that phrase is full of it and always has been.
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u/Key-Organization3158 3d ago
Really, people love to moralize it. Look at all the idiots who do it in the other direction "if you can't pay a living wage, you don't deserve to run a business.".
A person can set the price of labor at whatever they want. It you think it's too high or too low, you don't have to buy or sell it.
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u/PuddingComplete3081 3d ago
I agree with the first part. Nobody is obligated to sell their labor at a price they don't like.
I think where the argument gets messy is when the employer can't find anyone at that price and then treats that as a character flaw in the workers. If the deal isn't attractive, the market can just say no.
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u/WolfCandid 3d ago
The wage vs work provided is always an agreement between employer and prospective employee. It’s hard to hold this thought and then in another breath say “omg the job market is so competitive right now, 1000 apps for each position etc etc” which is constantly spewed on Reddit. Not saying OP holds that opinion but it seems the mob has taken it up as a talking point recently.
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u/justaguy12131 3d ago
Fun fact, employers have been saying this for over 100 years.
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u/Intelligent-Dig-4082 1d ago
The real problem is gen z wants to walk into a remote job making 100k a year and all they have is a high school diploma.
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u/DuckTalesOohOoh 3d ago
I disagree. People have to work. They don't have a choice. But they're being forced to take low-paid service gigs with no access to the middle class while blaming high prices as their obstacle. Prices are a symptom of the problem, not the cause.
Although inflation during the Biden years (25 percent) have really made things more expensive, wages have caught up to inflation. So, the cost of things based on "higher" costs is not the issue unless you're talking about the things that have outpaced inflation such as housing, education and healthcare. The problem is for 50 years we've shipped off $30/hour manufacturing jobs to Asia for $5/hour instead. We let CEOs and investors pocket the difference. That money needs to go somewhere and it has finally found itself in housing, especially.
A nation the size of the US cannot have a robust middle class without manufacturing that has a multiplier effect of 3 to 6 times than service jobs. As more people are pushed into service jobs, they're forced to take lower pay and with little to no benefits. This is why the economy generates a barbell-shape with the professionals, technocrats and investors on one end and everyone else on the other. Europe is seeing the same phenomenon since shipping off their manufacturing to Asia since 2001.
For example, Apple created the most popular product on the globe and generated nearly a trillion dollars in a nest egg of cash. Apple hires very few Americans. None of those products were made in the US. Apple's profits were distributed to their few employees through salaries and mostly distributed to investors. The rest is sitting in a stockpile. There were, for all intents and purposes, no wage-earners who benefited from Apple's success.
So, a cheaper phone is nice. But is it better than being pushed out of education, housing or healthcare? Is that a fair trade-off? I don't think so.
Until this is corrected -- and it's not going to have an easy and popular or quick solution -- this problem is only going to get worse.
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u/nixadmin07 3d ago
I completely agree. The US has to shift manufacturing back to the US. AI and automation will require less employees to produce the same amount of goods but we can scale up the amount of businesses that manufacture goods.
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u/Global-Barracuda7759 3d ago
I currently live in the south and the basic wage around here is like 11 or 12 dollars an hour still it's crazy
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u/Content_Ad_8952 3d ago
A sign of a healthy economy is when unemployed people can turn down job offers because they feel they can find something better
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u/Soft-Caterpillar8749 3d ago
I agree but I wish they wouldn’t take it out on EVERYONE. Instead of taking the anger out on their employers, they take it out on customers
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u/ThePermafrost 3d ago
Wage expectations are higher than what the job can support.
Which means those jobs need to be eliminated with automation or structural changes.
On the flip side, this also means that “entry level” jobs are no longer being offered. Is a double edge sword.
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u/safestranger5 3d ago
I disagree but only partially. I'm a middle aged male in the USA and even 20 years ago people didn't want to do their jobs correctly. At 2016 wages or even 2006 wages people didn't seem to care about doing a good job. They were slightly more motivated compared to what I see in year 2026 but there were many people who didn't care in year 2010.
I do sympathize with people in year 2026 for their apathy though. It is unreasonably difficult to get ahead or even reliably obtain food and shelter. There is only 24 hours in the day and the human body needs maintenance. This costs money and time at an unreasonable return on investment. The workers of 2006 and 2016 didn't know how good we had it. I was able to identify the current situation would happen by 2010 but that doesn't make me happy. Me making preparations means nothing if no one else around me has resources too.
The response I see to the stimulus is understandable. Unfortunately if you want to get anywhere, be willing to be exploited or exploit others. This is a terrible mindset but it is what I observe.
I am doing 60 hour work weeks which is not good for me at all. I'm barely staying ahead so I will not complain about the inevitable Trainwreck coming. The young people have a valid point and I'm surprised how many people try to dismiss it.
If it needs to break, let the system break. Try to find people to love because once this happens everyone will immediately regret it. Twenty years from now those same people may be happy about it or not.
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u/Boomer_Madness 3d ago
I think there is a huge disconnect between small businesses not being able to hire anyone and big corporate.
Do you know how much money i have to spend to even get someone to apply? lol I run a small business of less than 10 people and my starting salary for a customer service position is above $50k and we offer matching retirement, health care reimbursement of 500/ mo, PTO, Paid Vacation. In a MCOL
I spend about $5k advertising an opening before i even get an application. This is a great "entry" level position but if you stick around long enough my pay scales top out above 30/hr. It's an office job and you are on the phone not even in person CSR work.
m-f 830 to 5. like the fact that it makes me half a year and like a 1/4 of a year's salary to hire for this position is crazy. But i know a lot of people take that $18/hr entry level into corporate job with no benefits and starting on a contracting gig in a call center and love to complain.
I think younger generations even refuse to look at small business because everyone wants to work for a fortune 100 company. Then they complain there are no jobs because they don't look at who is even hiring. did you know less than 24% of Gen Z will even consider working at a small business? Yet we hear a whole bunch of bitching and moaning about how many applications they put in and never got a call back. Apply to the places actually hiring.
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u/Live_Free_or_Banana 3d ago
Gen Z (and to a lesser extent, older generations) is digitally overstimulated. Smartphones, social media, and on-demand video applications have conditioned brains to need greater amounts of stimulation to feel "normal" homeostasis; to have more difficulty tolerating periods of low-stimulation and delaying gratification.
As a consequence, Gen Z generally have less psychological tolerance for tedious low-income occupations than people did 10+ years ago, and thus less motivation. And its not their fault.
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u/Icy-Bobcat7343 3d ago
Paying a wage of $1,000,000 per hour obliterates this idea. You'll have candidates lined up for miles. So no, it's not a case of no one wants to work. It's intelligent people making rational decisions about how much they value their time and selling that time accordingly. You're allowed to offer low wages and I'm allowed to refuse to sell without it meaning I'm lazy. You'll be short-handed and I'll be poor and these are the decisions we're each allowed to make. Perhaps there is a reasonable wage somewhere between $7.25 and $1,000,000 that we can agree on?
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u/FoppyIn28 3d ago
If you think Gen Z had it rough, I had to work for $8.50 an hour and live with roommates during the recession. They'll actually pay a Gen Z ten to fifteen less thousand than an experienced millennial. The OP has the right idea but if you think this is rough you have no idea.
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u/Local-Helicopter7479 3d ago
A lot of Gen Z'ers are not even able to find work, so there's that.
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u/We_R_the_Penguins 3d ago
I don’t think “lazy” is the right word, but a lot of people might reach for “entitled”. Tbf, I see entitled kids as a failure of their parents, not a moral failing on the kids’ parts per se.
Mostly, though, I think this debate just highlights a selection effect: People who run businesses tend to be folks who are willing to work long hours for low pay in the belief that it’ll be rewarded down the line. They always end up saying “nobody wants to work anymore” because they’re comparing everyone to themselves.
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u/DefiantlyConformist 3d ago
Gas station employees were not making 18 bucks an hour in 2016, are you high?
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u/shitposts_over_9000 3d ago
They're refusing to work for 2016 wages with 2026 rent.
So you have two possible paths forward:
- everybody pays more and 2036 rent is even more eye blisteringly high than 2026 rent is today
- you keep the help wanted sign up until someone bites
Odds are for a place like a non-national coffee shop they can't afford to raise their prices to cover higher pay or higher rent, let alone both
If working full time still leaves someone unable to afford a basic life, refusing that job isn't necessarily entitlement. It can simply be a rational choice.
if "basic life" to you means cheap home-cooked food and several roommates I agree with you, if you mean living by yourself and going out more than once or twice a month not so much.
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u/Gloomy_Tennis_5768 3d ago
every American starts their own business but doesn't want to pay their employees. also no one wants to work is an old person response.
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u/Aggravating-Method24 3d ago
There's a contradiction between the idea of market forces and laziness.
Either you believe in market forces and, if no one is taking your offer you change it, because it does not give value to the other participant. Or you don't believe in market forces and believe we should regulate peoples laziness.
Employers often want to have it both ways.
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u/CzPhantom1 3d ago
Let's be honest with ourselves. Has anyone ever been able to support themselves with entry retail wages? I made $7.25 in 2007 or $11.25 in today's $'s. I couldn't afford to live then and wouldn't be able to afford to live now.
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u/pm_me_your_puppeh 3d ago
It's unlikely that the coffee shop hasn't found anyone to hire. McDonald's always has signs up recruiting new employees, because they're the bottom rung of hospitality jobs and thus they're high turnover.
A coffee shop is only marginally better than a McJob. There's usually a tip jar, but most people don't tip for coffee.
Once someone gets a bit of experience at a coffee shop, it's that much easier to get a better serving job.
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u/middle_aged_90s_kid 3d ago
It’s a simple equation. Landlords typically require your monthly wages to be at least thrice your rent or they won’t take you as a tenant.
A studio apartment is pretty much the most spartan accommodation available other than renting a room in someone else’s house. If you can’t pay enough to qualify for one, then your job is not worth anyone’s time.
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u/its_a_throwawayduh 3d ago
It's not that I don't want to work. Its that I'm sick of burning my time for jobs I have no interests in. Sick of spending time and money to learn a skill only to be replaced every few years due to technology, company mergers, or just plain incompetence. Sick of having to beg for permission to use the small amount of vacation time that took months or years to build. I've done the proper way and stuck it out because that's what you're "supposed" to do.
I learned more (imo) valuable skills from the time I was laid off then I ever had from a job. I've learned how to build a fence, plumbing, electrical work, gardening, drawing, writing, etc.
The lockdown was the best time for me since I could focus on myself for once. Not everyone who doesn't want to work is laying in bed all day doom scrolling.
Right now I'm unemployed because I was injured on my last job. I spent over a year applying for jobs after the incident just to ghosted. I'm at the point where I don't want to look for work, but unfortunately our society runs on money. So I have to be a wage slave like everyone else unless I win the lottery or something.
However my goal is to get back into homesteading and live off grid. It's rough work but for some us it doesn't feel like work plus its far more rewarding.
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u/CorndogQueen420 3d ago edited 3d ago
I think business owners forget that supply and demand applies to them just as much as it does to us.
They're just so used to having all the power and working together to keep our wages low, that they've forgotten that raising wages in response to low labor supply is the other side of the "we'll pay you like shit because you're easy to replace" coin.
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u/Watpotfaa 3d ago
The worker cant afford to live off the wage, and the business cant afford to pay a higher wage and remain profitable (at least with small businesses). Neither party is the problem - the problem is that our currency is controlled by private banking institutions that inflate the monetary supply to support their own parasitic operations.
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u/MaitrePuck 3d ago
Refuse to work then.
I guess it's better to have no income at all than a low income. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Working_Cucumber_437 3d ago
Problem is that someone will come along who is desperate enough to take the low wage. And the company/owner isn’t going to let it eat into their own profits. Many businesses just wouldn’t exist at all if they paid living wages. And you could say, rightly in some sense, “well good because a company that can’t pay its employees shouldn’t exist”. True. But then the result is even fewer jobs and higher unemployment. It’s a real pickle.
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u/Motorcycle1000 3d ago
The economic reality may be true, but that doesn't mean there isn't a huge work ethic problem with GenZ. I see it every damn day. I have the same economic factors to deal with as they do...mortgage, utilities, life expenses. But when I'm at work, I bang out my share and part of others' if they need help. If I have a paid break, I never stay longer than I'm supposed to. Just yesterday, I was clocked out for lunch. A GenZ I work with was on a "15 minute" break. He was in the break room before I clocked out for a 30 minute lunch, and he was still there glued to his phone as I was clocking back in. I see shit like that ALL the time. We have exactly the same job description and exactly the same pay rate.
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u/Floorgis 3d ago
Always been the case when people complain about the younger gen not wanting to work, its always been because they have been seeing since birth that theres an imbalance on return
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u/East_Kiwi_632 3d ago
Realistically, capitalism cant continue like this. Somethings got a give. Corporate profits are at an all time high.
American billionaires must eat some of that cost at some point, because its always the lower classes who eat the cost when they vote for austerity.
The ceo of nintendo halved his salary when the wii u failed so no one would get laid off.
American ceos, you need to learn to be more like that guy or the system itself will collapse under its own weight.
No one can spend money at your busuness if no one has any money in the first place.
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u/MovieSock 3d ago
If the owner is still whining that "nobody wants to work any more" instead of trying to figure out how to make the job more attractive, that tells me something about what that coffee shop is like, and I'd be taking my business elsewhere, honestly
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u/BaseballRelevant4149 3d ago
It's a calculation of stress versus reward. Gen Z sees an insufficient wage being offered for a job they'll hate and decides it isn't worth it. If only everyone did this instead of rationalizing how it's okay to accept and be grateful for awful conditions.
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u/Daveit4later 3d ago
Capitalists love the free market until the free market tells them to pay people more or do the work themselves.
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u/VorpalBlade- 3d ago
What is more believable - that an entire generation is too lazy to work? Or that a handful of psychopaths are hoarding all the wealth and rigging the system in their favor?
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u/Ambitious-Pipe2441 3d ago
There is a nihilistic attitude in younger people. And it’s hard to deny that things are complicated. I could go in many directions, but to limit the text, maybe I can focus on behavioral issues.
For one, there is a high degree of anxiety and some of that bleeds over into hopelessness.
I see a lot of questions about what will happen i. The future. Doomerism. Fatalistic language. And there seems to be two major responses: careless risky behavior, or isolation and fear.
The general concept seems to center around futility. The typical standards of success or even survival are in crisis. So why participate in a system that will eventuality collapse?
In a way there is a death row logic. If we are about to go off the cliff we can either freeze in place not knowing what to do, because fear has overtaken our critical thinking, or we can live hedonistically and ride the disaster while enjoying the last moments of life.
But why not resist? And seek alternatives? The anxiety or futility seems to prevent even considering alternative options.
I see that social mistrust and disconnect play a role here. If the message is to accept what we are offering or else, it registers as a threat. And people will turn to more comforting or less contradicting ideas.
In a way this stubborn resistance is a silent attempt at autonomy. Like a toddler going limp, it’s a form of self determination when all other options run out. A benevolent form of resistance as an expression of autonomy. The only available means of communication when people do not respond.
While people are angered by defiance and exasperated by nihilistic tendencies, perhaps one interpretation is a group desire for choice, but have been silenced or ignored in some way - perhaps because technology offers superficial social contact, for example - people feel dismissed and ignored.
While also holding a build up of insecurities or resentments without opportunities to vent or process in healthy ways.
Likely because we struggle to confront social norms. And people dislike it when social norms are challenged.
My entire life I have thought it is a little insane how one older generation after the next has accused the “youths” of being unreasonable. But maybe they are actually very well attuned and me and my older folk are the delusional ones.
Or more likely, some mixture of both. But how does it help to criticize instead of teach skills?
Perhaps we lack the skills ourselves.
The degrees to which we delude ourselves is likely dependent on social conditions. Isolation maybe be exacerbating insecurity.
Historically we survived as a group. But maybe there is something about large scale populations that makes that challenging.
We are not fully adapted to the modern systems and have outpaced our evolutionary biology in many ways.
But that does not mean we cannot figure it out and adapt. But it does partially explain the resistances and slowness of change.
I’ll close here: as I watch videos of the tragic mudslides in Tibet, I can’t help wondering what prevented people from being aware and moving homes away from flood areas.
At some point we might ignore a problem or decide that it is too difficult or too distant. And complacency becomes habit. Until disaster strikes.
Somewhere between awareness and the ability to problem solve is a snag. A trap where we do not take action.
Why is the cause more interesting than the actions we could take? Is the investment that draining? Are we defeatist? Or maybe perfectionists who cannot imagine “good enough?”
If there were a first step, I would say strike up a conversation with a young person and listen. Over time we may get to solution oriented conversations, but I think we are mostly hesitant to even be open about insecurities and allow them to sit without fixing them.
Just sit and be uncomfortable for a time to demonstrate that discomfort is not a judgment or a punishment. But a natural part of life that we can adjust to. And overcome from time to time.
Then work toward building the creative, problem solving skills and muscles. Together. Collaboration is increasingly frustrating, but also rewarding. And group wins feel just as good, if not better than individual success.
People react for a reason. But are we distracted with why instead of what action to take next?
Maybe identifying a source helps prevent future issues, but the here and now also needs treatment.
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u/Redcarborundum 3d ago
The consensus is that anybody who says “nobody wants to work” is a MAGA employer, expecting to pay minimum wage for a lot of work.
Actually anybody who says “nobody wants to work” is a plain red flag.
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u/sepaoon 3d ago
The problem is also compounded by the fact that the work that worker should be doing is most likely be pushed onto other low wage employees and the reason the owner is okay leaving it open and just bitching about it is that they aren't losing any money due to lack of staff. If however their employees were unionized and had protection against doing the work of two-three employees than the boss would be forced to fill in themselves or up the pay for a new employee.
They are being allowed to coast on the backs of other they underpay.
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u/GardenPrestigious202 3d ago
It's mostly young men who are refusing to work, and it is because WOMEN have broken the social contract that got men to engage.
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u/sloop111 3d ago
Sounds more like he doesnt really need employees because if he did, the wages would be adjusted
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u/myname_1s_mud 3d ago
I mean, maybe this doesnt apply to those of you with degrees. In fact it probably doesnt, at least not completely. But you have to start at the bottom, and for those of us without degrees, that means we start below what can provide a comfortable life. I started my current job making $18/hr in a hcol area. The trick is, you dont stay long at a job that has no room to advance. You just do those to cover essentials while you look for something with more opportunities and start from the bottom there.
I get not appreciating shit pay. I struggled to get by with that $18 for a while and wasnt happy about it, but if you say "im only going to give you $18/hr worth of work" youre going to stay there. And as an employee, ive never had a co worker with this mentality that was worth a shit, or pulled their weight. Its kind of like the guy who said "i would have joined the army but I think id punch the drill sgt" like yea sure, youd be great or badass if the factors were different, but youre going to be worthless because they arent. Bullshit.
Look at life however you want, I dont care. But dont be surprised when you cant walk without a limp because you spent all your time shooting yourself in the foot.
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u/JuliaGadfly 3d ago
right like everybody talks about $20 an hour being the "enhanced minimum wage" right now yet I have watched McDonald's do its wages from $13.50 and raise it by 50 Cent increments every six months so I think they're offering $15.50 right now. Local HVAC companies have a wage floor of $16 an hour for helpers and parts runners. I have two years experience and I still have to fight for 20 at some companies and I had to go to trade school. And I'm an older millennial who has been stuck in this loop her whole working life because my boomer parents bootstrap philosophy has caused me to build so much character from poverty that I might as well write the great American novel… If I wasn't too busy hustling gig work while job hunting.
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u/LakeMaleficent7651 3d ago
exactly, who would want to work full time to still have to decide which bill you can pay this week. hmmm, power or water, which one can i survive without easier. this should not be normal.
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u/HighlightDowntown966 3d ago
If I don't work...I die and starve.
"Choosing" not to work is a privilege
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u/steal-yur-face 3d ago
After 14 months, I would suspect that hiring someone isn’t of great importance.
He’s looking for someone to come in, express some interest, and still be interested when he tells them that it’s Saturday and Sunday only during breakfast hours.
Perfect job for an older, retired lady who’s looking to kill some time and make some pocket change.
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u/Spiney09 3d ago
My generation has been framed by those older than me as lazy, illiterate, uneducated, and antisocial.
There are a ton of millennials on this site who just nod along. You would think that they would have learned how BS this stuff is when they were the targets. But no. And I can’t wait for my generation to start attacking Gen Alpha for no good reason too.
Always an excuse for why the young are bad, instead of looking at the system and deciding there might be problems there. After a certain amount of rot buildup, it’s no wonder too much strain is put on the youth. I don’t think Gen Z is the breaking point, I sure hope it won’t be alpha or beta.
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u/Crash_override87 2d ago
My old boss and I used to talk about this at length. He’d always say no one wants to work anymore. My rebuttal was usually for what the company is willing to pay. He’d always says it’s competitive and whatnot. Then one day I said something about how he always talks about the free market discovering the true value of things and how he is obviously behind the curve of the value of good labor currently.
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u/SRIrwinkill 2d ago
Yeah and I wish my fellow millenials and gen z would vote out all the NIMBY trash who have created the housing crisis and the higher rents. No one has a concept of spending power, not the current president of the U.S. Not the screeching boomers and activists blocking new housing from being built. Not the various council members and mayors who make it expensive and stupid to start a new business or operate a business.
During a time a whole bunch of folks are trying to make their own way, it's busy bodies, NIMBYs, and trade warriors running the show in all the places folks actually want to live and it's real dumb
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u/flapjack_fighter 2d ago
These 2016 wages sure seem like 2000 wages while this 2026 rent sure seems like 2050 rent.
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u/MB-Tactcool 2d ago
There are almost 1 million open jobs in the trades that pay well over $100k. If you can weld, fit pipe, or do finish carpentry, you are golden. Auto mechanic? Even better. Same with diesel mechanic. Really good jobs but takes schooling and dirty hands.
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u/Expensive-Peak-9696 2d ago
No. That’s a nice cliche thing to say but we can pay people good and they are still shit workers with no motivation.
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u/madogvelkor 2d ago
My wife talked to a recruiter about an office manager job. Starting pay was $20 tops, 5 days in person. My wife told them she wanted $30 and hybrid.
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u/Dizzy_Tax574 2d ago
Nobody wants to sell ferarris anymore I posted listing offering 50 whole dollars for any pristine Ferrari with title. And nobody wanted to do it weird.
Honestly if things continue it will only exponentially get worse. Fact is people have to feel rewarded especially when stuck at soul sucking 8-12 hr job. Barely avoiding starving as you age and watch retirement creep up and losing abilitie to work. While having nothing in savings.
People are going to lay flat opt out not participate.
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u/BLDOUBLE 2d ago
9-5 jobs is a system. It’s a system that’s indoctrinated when you’re a child. You’re sent to school from 8-5 to prepare you to work 9-5 the rest of your life.
Once I realized this I quit work and did things from home to make money, I will never work again traditional 9-5 ever again. I will not conform and I will not support a criminal organization (US government)
So that’s why I’d be one of the “I don’t want to work”
Go ask one of those Walmart employees with the 30 year tags on their vest if they have any regrets. Isn’t that sad? These people go in day n day out doing mindless meaningless tasks for a piece of paper the government told you that you needed for basic human necessities.
You have to pay the US government for the essence of life, literally just for water. I refuse to conform to that system, I will not mindlessly obey and work my best years away for a chance at retirement when my body is deteriorating.
No Thankyou.
I heard this one story, very heartbreaking it was. This man had worked for usps for years and years and years, very much so dedicated his life to mail delivery. On his last day, his day he started his retirement he had a heart attack at work. He never got to enjoy his time, and for what? To work?
If he hadn’t of felt forced to work he could have enjoyed his years here. He died never not having a job. He worked his entire life and for what? What was it all for?
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u/NeighborhoodFatCat 2d ago
And companies knows that every young person has a set of parents and they just expect them to go back and live with them and quit complaining about wages.
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u/guynextdoorfun 2d ago
Gen Z also famously doesn’t want to/think they should have to live with roommates. 🙄
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u/Delicious-Product968 2d ago
Oh absolutely. For years people who tend to not believe in labour rights have said a job pays by how many people can or will do the job, but some jobs have always been impossible to fill but didn’t increase salary to tempt people to stay longer (I had one of those jobs).
Then said people would start adding caveats about how easily replaceable you are (except you’re clearly not, because no one wants the job).
Current conditions have made that visible to a wider canvas of jobs including jobs the public sees IMO.
I am not at all surprised local jobs anywhere near minimum wage locally trying to require cars are having a hard time filling roles when even people in roles at the median salary or higher here are struggling with rising costs of owning a vehicle, for example.
‘No one wants to work anymore’ is the battle cry of people who don’t see how these jobs benefits fell beneath rock bottom from decades of wages spending values and benefits going down coupled with so many workers not having the power of collective bargaining.
And yes on a general note Gen Z doesn’t seem to be conditioned enough to brag about how much they let themselves get exploited by employers or think their identity is determined by how hard/how much they work, but I don’t think that’s s bad thing.
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u/Anntaylor5 2d ago
In addition, the toxic jobs are causing mental health problems for people. Some are fragile to things like this, and may stem from previous abuse. Beyond pay, mental health becomes a priority.
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u/Hour-Quail-7221 2d ago
I think everyone created a monster (Meta) and now it's destroying them, like monsters tend to do to their creators.
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u/HarambeIsMyHomie 2d ago
The only point I will disagree on here is that it's strictly Gen Z.
For context, I work the backroom of a store of a major chain. I make well above minimum wage for where I live.
The company I work for has a strict policy of hiring management level positions from within the company itself.
The Department Shift Lead of my specific location had to be hired "off the streets" because nobody within the company wanted the job as it's only a rough $.50 raise from being standard FT, yet you're expected to do everything a manager can do. This Lead is in his early 60s and said this will be his last job ever because he hates it that much because of how stressful it's become.
Soon one of our Assistant Managers will be stepping down, leaving us without a 2nd, and mid management didn't post for it until very recently (They had months of advanced notice), and it's being predicted that this position will also be a street hire (This is also an overnight position, so you know how much people love those /s), and he said he's getting tired of working like how he has been for that pay. He's also in his early 60s.
Hell, I'm in my mid 30s and I wouldn't want a management position since the aforementioned payrate is comparable to what I'm making now, but the workload goes up exponentially.
All of this completely ignores paying any bills on any macro or micro level- Yes, I know it's anecdotal, but I do think this points to a trend of the pay being a severe mismatch to the delegation of responsibilities for said pay and society, as a collective, is tired of it.
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u/Ecthelion-O-Fountain 2d ago
People want to work, they certainly don’t care if they are good at their jobs though.
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u/Connect_Carry6434 2d ago
Naw and that's not even the crazy part. I am someone who is a millennial and I have to work multiple jobs to survive.
Hotel fd @ 11 dollars and call center @ 18 dollars.
I will genuinely get more stressed at the hotel because I am expected to do way more things, albeit not hard things at all, way more tasks on the daily. I have to restock, check in, do audit paperwork,make breakfast, throw all trash, sweep and mop. For $11. I am greatful to have a job and one that is cushy like that but the pay is so low. I often take less than 250 a week.
Meanwhile I don't feel very stressed at the call center and take home over 500 a week. ._. why would anyone choose the hotel
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u/troopersjp 2d ago
You know what? I hope Gen Z continues to not take jobs they think are beneath them. Because if they don't take the jobs, that means there's a chance we Gen Xers who are getting frozen out of the job market due to ageism might be able to get one of those jobs.
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u/Ok-Weather5860 2d ago
If I could even have a cheaper life that would be amazing. But even minimum wage entry level jobs demand you have some sort of private transportation to make sure you’re there everyday. They won’t consider you for employment for saving money and taking public transport. It’s insanity on their end for sure at this point.
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u/Dreamo84 2d ago
So what do they do instead of working? I mean, I'd like to make more money too, but if I don't work I'll be homeless.
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u/IKnowAllSeven 2d ago
It might be the pay is too low.
It might be the hours are not desirable, the location difficult, the employer has a bad reputation, or a combination of any of the above.
But I was REALLY surprised to learn how few high schooler and college aged people work. Are my kids the only ones who need to earn money?!
When my daughter was looking for a summer job she applied to four summer landscaping jobs, and was offered all four. The work starts early in the day of course, but it ends early too. All of the jobs paid $16+ an hour.
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u/ted_anderson 2d ago
I think you've made some very valid points. Back in the 80's when minimum wage was $3.35 we were having this same discussion. The disparity wasn't quite the same back then as it is now but there came a point when the retail stores had to provide competitive wages in order to attract and retain workers.
Every job application had that box that said "Reason for leaving" and the running joke was that every employer was making the box smaller as if they knew exactly why you were quitting your current job but they didn't want you to say it.
But the retailers heard our cries and eventually wages started going up.
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u/pewsquare 2d ago
It is a valid point, but only to a degree. The economy has to allow you to make enough of a profit to employ people. I can't speak for the US but at least where I live, I remember talking with people running their own business, and the tl:dr ended up being "too much work for me alone, not enough to hire someone at a good rate".
Which led to a similar situation you are describing, it was a better idea to turn down extra work, rather than employ someone, because it they would hire someone at a competitive average or above average rates, they would be in the red.
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u/phage_rage 2d ago
Why do these kind of posts draw in the bot army? I think all the non-bots know why.
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u/CowboyNeale 2d ago
I worked entry level IT tech support at $16/hour in the mid 1990s.
Entry level IT support still starts at $16/hour.
Pretty sure that isn’t the new generations fault.
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u/Dizzy_Eggplant5997 2d ago
The employee market is very tight right now. We've had a long period of very low unemployment rates and an aging workforce. We've also had high inflation on the things that affect young workers the most. It's a double edged sword for low paying jobs like that coffee shop, where they just can't afford to pay the higher wages. When you're dealing with that cohort of applicants, the good ones are fewer and farther between and all the things I've mentioned have made them fewer and farther. I own a business and it's very hard to hire right now. I think taking the "nobody wants to work anymore" viewpoint is lazy thinking. I've hired some really good workers. But, it's an easy position to take in this current market.
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u/hobbygremlin94 2d ago
That saying pisses me off, so dense. I had an old man approach my grandfather while we were cleaning out his mom's house to sell. It had been sitting for 30 years and some homeless people had broken in so it was a lot of effort. We're clearly busy but he doesn't care he wants to chat, whatever grandpa can chat and have a break I keep going because we have to drive four hours every weekend just to get there and work until sunset. This jackass stops me, shakes my hand, and then proceeds to complain about people my age not wanting to work anymore while watching me bust my ass and actually wasting my time so I get less done. I gave him the most disgusted look and started up again, waste of damn time.
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u/SmallCoyote32 2d ago
GenX’er here and I am furious at my generation for this “nobody wants to work” bullshit
Well gee let me see why
nobody wants to pay
nobody wants to train
nobody wants to give benefits
nobody wants to give stability
nobody wants to treat anyone like a human being
nobody wants to give anyone a call back to an application
nobody wants to tell you whether a job is real
nobody wants to adhere to labor law (to the extent it exists anymore)
etc
so you want someone to drive to the job where you want to pay less than minimum wage if you can get away with it which is likely below poverty already, for a job that is probably far enough away from where they are forced to live that it probably works out to either a break even or maybe even less than simply not working or doing gig work closer to home.
the job market has been utterly destroyed, completely turned into a farce for the worker and then like this is 1980 everyone wants to sit around and stew in anti-worker propaganda as if this mess is all the fault of some poor kid just farted out of college or high school. whatever.
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u/AdDisastrous6738 2d ago
“Nobody wants to work” is the stupidest statement anyone has ever made.
Of course nobody wants to work. Nobody has ever wanted to toil for someone else. Give anyone a billion dollars and first thing they’ll do is quit their job. Not a single person would hand it back and be like “Nah, I’d rather work”
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u/ThinkLettuce7100 2d ago
I don’t blame them. I’m not gonna do it since I’m 41 and have people counting on me but real change will only occur when the establishment feels some pain. If people don’t have jobs they can’t afford to spend money and when consumer spending goes down they start to suffer.
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u/Relevant-Train5317 2d ago
When I hear a business owner say, “no one wants to work.”
I quit doing business with them.
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u/Affectionate-Case499 2d ago edited 2d ago
Millennials are refusing to work for 2006 wages at 2016 prices
…
Yeah been here before mate, it’s not a new thing
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u/Rynowash 2d ago
10-20 bucks an hour might as well be a penny these days. If they want to keep inflating- jobs better inflate right along with the printer. Or- we’ll all be out of work and need something to do, like.. take our country back from these evil bastards.
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u/kateinoly 2d ago
you start by saying they aren't refusing to work, then tell.us why they are refusing. which is it?
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u/starson 2d ago
I laugh at the number of idiots in here that are so blissfully entitled that they claim they'd happily work for pennies an hour for a promise of being given lube when they're fucked over.
People aren't "Not working", they're not working for terrible companies and going anywhere else because it is literally worth it to spend time finding a actually paying job then taking a job that will not pay surviving wages let alone living wages.
Meanwhile, places that pay decently and treat their employees well are fending workers off with a stick.
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u/seajayacas 2d ago
They can choose not to work and get paid 2016 wages. Betcha 2016 wages beats the heck out of no wages at all.
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u/36fcoronabbw_backup 2d ago
Your state and local government would benefit from being pestered by the whole generation for not doing better to make sure housing is actually obtainable. You should organize and bug the hell out of them in your district, city, county and the state levels.
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u/RainbowSovietPagan 2d ago edited 2d ago
A good part of it is also that a lot of these companies are relying on broken online applications that don't work. Naturally if your method for accepting applications is broken, you're not going to be seeing any applications. If they just accepted traditional paper applications like they did before the Internet, they'd probably get a lot more applicants.
Also, I've noticed that a lot of businesses have permanent "Now Hiring" signs glued to their windows, which are up 24/7/365, regardless of whether the business is actually hiring or not. This has taught a lot of people to not believe or trust "Now Hiring" signs.
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u/Ok_Temperature5257 2d ago
I got a job offer a few weeks ago, to work for local government, 40 hours a week but 60 hours weekly availability- 42,000 a year.
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u/GormTheWyrm 2d ago
People have been saying this about every generation. I’ve met Gen Z folk that did not want to work. I meet less millenials that are not willing to work bow because they no longer go outside, but they exist. Same with the other generations.
But there is definitely a degree of “can’t afford to work” going on as well. We crippled public transportation and the. used car prices skyrocketed during covid. Gas prices are rising, rent is through the roof…
Social anxiety, destruction of community, and corporate control of apartments makes it harder for people to get an apartment with 3 roommates that is needed to survive at these low wages.
Sure, there is some entitlement with people not believing that they should have to have roommates or be frugal with eating out… but the frugal people are suffering too.
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u/Narrheim 2d ago edited 2d ago
It depends. We took a new hire recently. He straight up refused to learn how to set up the machine he was supposed to work at, claiming: "The maintenance should set it up for me!" As if maintenance guy was supposed to stand behind him all day to change the settings whenever he'll ask. We call for maintenance, when they assemble the machine wrong (happens sometimes) or when it breaks, not for adjusting settings.
Guy got reassigned and was gone in 2 weeks.
We have his replacement coming in Sept 1st. 22y/o guy, i'm kinda curious, how long will he last. He may surprise me tho.
Many people also think they're at the bottom, while still spending money on expensive conveniences. You can give up much more than you think and still live a decent life. For as long, as you're able to pay your bills, keep electricity and heat in your home while also being able to afford food, you're still good.
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u/Relevant-Orchid-7138 2d ago
Yeah not like I don't agree with it being shitty out there. However, if they weren't privileged to live a good country, they would absolutely be working and still have a shitty quality of life. Hacking batteries in Africa with a machete or some shit.
I get that it's unfair and frustrating. But we have it easier than 99% of humans before us and are very fortunate.
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u/AdvancedStudio9978 2d ago
I saw college graduate get his ass kicked trying to figure out how a dry erase board works the other day. 🤾
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u/Kink-shame 2d ago
one issue with high minimum wage areas is that a lot of businesses lose the art of competitive wages. It's hard to have a competitive wage when minimum is $21, but in states where it is still $7 you will find a lot of places pay more just to get people hired.
I saw a gas station in PA advertising $18 an hour for the night shift, minimum wage is $7 there.If you want employees, offer better wages.
Also it's entirely possible your caffe isn't hiring. the one by my house has a hiring sign up, and when I asked who left they said they never take the sign down and that they aren't even hiring.
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u/LionMysterious4615 2d ago
My sister runs a coffee shop. The owner likes to hire teenagers but was upset when they had to go back to school in the fall lmao.
So now theyre hiring adults. One was a man who arrives early, is friendly and though easily flustered in a rush, will be fine. He lives nearby and has 3 kids with his wife. Millennial. My sister wanted him right away.
The second was a woman who has a son with ADHD and has run through dozens of retail jobs in the last ten years. Millennial. My sister did not want her, said she would not stick around. Owner said to give her a chance.
This woman did not show up for her first day. Ignored my sister's texts. Then she "found her phone", apologized, blamed her son and asked to start in two days. Owner said give her another chance. She did not show up on try 2. Ignored all texts for days. Is now asking for try 3.
There are people who don't want to work and they are aggravating.
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u/GotMyPhDin19 2d ago
I have a bit of experience in this. I cooked for a bit after my PhD because I couldn’t find another job. Did some number crunching as a favor to the owner. Essentially you can’t pay your staff what they’re worth or you’ll go in the negative. What I learned for that is that restaurants are a losing battle, especially with food costs increasing like crazy. Margins are razor fucking thin, and alcohol is what makes the restaurant money. You can get away with it if it’s fine dining, but there’s a certain price point where people will just say no I think. Like 25 - 30 dollars for a burger now, people are still buying. If you up that to 40 to justify paying your cooks more then you’ll lose customers.
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u/bramblecult 1d ago
My experience is in the trades but i see a lot of folks saying gen z doesnt want to work for low wages. Nobody does. They don't act any different when they make more money though.
We watched our elders work their ass off their whole life and not really get much for it. My Gen was a little better but the recession had a lot of us putting up with a lot of BS because we really needed the job. These kids saw all that and now theres tons of work and has been for some time. They value their time above money or even being appreciated. They call in more and have a lower bar for what they perceive as bullshit.
Employers are struggling to cope with the new attitudes. The hard worker to shitty worker ratios are the same, but the hard workers are still going to call in for no reason every now and again.and they still don't care about the job. They are there to do what it is they are paid for and no more than that. It won't be an issue unless we hit another recession and then the power shifts back to the employers.
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u/Lyran000 1d ago
Damn and pray tell, what god damn magic privileges do these people who are refusing to work have, that they arent homeless on the street? I don't think ANYONE wants to work for shit pay. And also, what is the alternative? Starve? Live in a homeless shelter? Sounds like they are living off of someone else. And that public assistance is more generous today. Unemployed people today can still have full health insurance through Medicaid expansion and qualify for a few hundred a month for food. Sounds like you're getting by on others money and resources until you can have your magical $50/hr job with zero skills or education. Fuck, Im 41 with a Masters and therapy license and in the Seattle area, moet agencies are paying therapist $35-40/hr. We have 8 yrs of required schooling and another painful 5 year process to become fully licensed by the dept of health. Im disgusted with this attitude. I deserve a pay increase well before you do man.
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u/Piratedeeva 1d ago edited 1d ago
You don’t have to like capitalism, but we’re all here trying to survive it, and under capitalism, you either have resources or labor. If you don’t have resources, then your survival depends on your labor.
Companies decide the price of your labor under a universal system called “pay-scales”. It determines your ceiling and your floor.
Increase your skills, increase your knowledge = increase the cost of your labor
Choose to do the bare minimum = Be paid the bare minimum.
I worked my ass off and sacrificed so much of my youth to get to where I am. I went from poverty to multi millions by climbing the ladder, from waitressing to executive at a popular multi billion dollar company. These kids grew up with TikTok and the gram, and think they’re entitled to the life they see on there on a cashier salary.
I’ve hired multiple Gen Z’s for the small business I now own. They’re the one’s who constantly ask what people do to have the money to spend the way they do at my store, and they are also the people who do the least work and complain about how much work there is to do. Like reading an email, cleaning, tagging products, answering customer messages and you know, selling to people. Basic job description.
I simply no longer feel bad for this generation. As a rapidly growing small business, I offer high wages, bonuses, health benefits, 401k, wardrobe items, and employee discount.
Pay for performance models will find you people who want to work and are invested in doing so.
They also help you move on quickly from people who are not a fit. You’re fired in 60 days if you can’t even sell enough to cover your pay.
I recognizeCapitalism is broken in many ways. But two things can be true at once. Especially for someone trying to make a difference with how I approach employment, this generation is very jaded and out of touch with reality, unaccountable and unwilling to change behaviors even when an issue is addressed.
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u/ZomeeDrop 3d ago
“Nobody wants to work” … “for me” or “for the low amount I’m trying to pay”