The Washington Post writes today that Millennials fled the workforce when they were teens but that Gen Z teens are pouring back. Regular readers of this blog are ahead of the curve here, since I pointed out three months ago that Gen Z, on average, seems to like work more than previous generations.
But how about Millennials? Are they really a bunch of slackers?
No! Compared to the allegedly grim and determined Xers, Millennials have joined the labor force in consistently greater numbers than Xers. The difference is about two percentage points. That's a difference of 1.5 million workers.
Now, this might just be an age effect. Maybe 30-year-olds always join the labor force in greater numbers than 50-year-olds. Unfortunately, I'm writing this on my tablet in cubicle 6 of my local infusion center, which means you're lucky to get anything from me at all, let alone extensive research and detailed fact checking. So take this for what it's worth.
I think it partly depends on what the figures measure. 45-55 strikes me as the time when people would feel secure enough (or frustrated enough) to want to head out on their own and become self-employed or set up a new business. I could easily imagine that being as much as a million people. Do "labor force" figures include the 'non-salaried'?
Not sure what series Kevin is looking at, but normally the "labor force" includes the self-employed.
I would guess that at age 50, you see the effects of (i) the handful of people who made so much money that they retired early, (ii) a certain number of those whose health has deteriorated sufficiently that they cannot work, and (iii) women who never went back to work once their first or second child was born.
Is it that when Gen X entered the workforce their immediate superiors were Boomers who were probably frustrated that weren't yet a billionaire and worked mostly at being the biggest jackasses they could be, where when Millennials entered the workforce their immediate superiors were Gen X people who thought Reagan was a pile of crap, and thereby find it incredibly less awful.
Not digging into the numbers too much here, but my generation (GenX) was kind of the genesis of the term slacker. And I have to say, I guess, guilty as charged. Get Z has even more to process than we did, but there are more of them.
Richard Linklater made the defining movie for us! In 1991 (i.e. prime genx age)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacker_(film)
I see my generation has been remembered long enough to be called slackers again. I wouldn't care anyway, but Kevin is old enough to witness "us" calling ourselves that first, in pastiche narrative form:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacker_(film)
As usual in these discussions, what is said is less interesting for what it may reveal about vaguely defined cohorts than it does about the speakers.
I'm actually thinking it may be time to slack for a while. I've spent the better part of a decade on the technical of a startup, scaling it into a big part of a fortune 100, and am bored with my role now.
Oh bugger I missed this comment in posting. Bother, beaten to the punch.
Well, one of my Gen X compatriots just retired. Age 55. (Gen X starts with those born in ‘65)
The new Gulf War and the great Recession did a lot of damage to the GenX job market. Mitch's attempts to make Obama a one term president by doing his best to trash the recovery made sure of that. The opioid epidemic didn't help either.
But still, the numbers could have been much worse for them.
Although all Generational analysis statistics are 75% rubbish, as I recall GenX was always labelled in USA land as slackers since starting to join the labour market at end of 1980s through the 1990s.
So should continue a great tradition.
Gen X is also a smaller cohort.
...and that noise they call music....
(oh wait, their listening to the greatest hits from the 60's, 70's, and '80's...)
What's with the 10 year ranges with a gap, seems like cherry picking. What does the 35-44 line look like? Gen X is about 1965-1985 so currently 37 - 57. For the older cohort, losing jobs due to covid and trying to get a good job after 50 isn't easy.
As a GenXer at 55, I would like to say that I have been in the workforce for 40 years. For 8 of those years, I ran my own small business with, quite literally, no days off. For several other years, I pursued further education and training while also working and trying to be a good and present father.
I also want to call out the real problem of ageism in hiring. I have been “fortunate” enough to experience this first hand. I find myself, these days, in an entry level factory job with the very clearly, if indirectly, communicated fact that I am one of the “we need a warm body” hires.
Other’s points about early retirement are good, too. I have a few friends who have recently retired from 30 year teaching careers. I’m looking forward to hearing what they experience while looking for the next thing.
So I object to the slacker label pasted on a whole generation. That is simply beyond ridiculous and a product of the laziest kind of thinking.
Are GenX the real slackers? We literally invented the word, Kevin. Richard Linklater had a whole movie about it. When it comes to slacking those millennials have nothing on us.
Fascinating to see how people imbue generational stereotypes with their pet peeves. As a cusper (born in '63), I've never identified as either boomer or xer, so see things from a bit of distance.
Boomers did some variation of that hippie2yuppie pendulum swing against the backdrop of Vietnam War trauma and the promise of a technology revolution. Corruption was a bad taste on everyone's tongue, and trust was a rare commodity.
Xers arrive on the job scene into the dregs of a recession followed by the shift from manufacturing to service economy that left so many obsolete before they got started (automation in action). (This has always been my perception of xer=slackers--when there's no path forward what else can you do?) But, as with their elders, former slackers turned entrepreneurs or found alternative ways forward as technology finally started delivering on its promises.
Lots of reasons why these two generations took different paths, usually its a turning away from whatever came before. With regard to jobs and work, the rejection of unions probably played a very big role for Xers along with the economy shift.