Why Gen Z Workers Are Cozying Up to Corporate Jobs
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Here's your money briefing for Friday, September 13th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. To people who've been in the workforce for a few decades, their office job might seem routine and boring. Not so for Gen Z and millennials. The 20 and 30-somethings that once celebrated not being cooped up in a cubicle now can't wait to show up for their 9 to 5.
They want to feel like they're doing something with their work, something bigger, more meaningful, while also getting that steady paycheck every two weeks.
We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter Anne-Marie Alcantara after the break.
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Gen Z and younger millennials used to mock corporate jobs. Now many are embracing them.
Why are Gen Z and younger millennials returning to corporate 9-to-5 jobs?
Wall Street Journal reporter Anne-Marie Alcantara joins me. Anne-Marie, why have corporate jobs had such a bad reputation among younger workers?
For many of the reasons that all of us have probably experienced at some point. Low pay, unclear expectations from managers, things that are out of your control, emails at 11 p.m. at night, things that have just existed for so long that people who are just entering the workforce are kind of worried about.
So what changed? What all of a sudden is appealing to them about working in an office?
So there's various economic conditions that have led to this. Inflation, the great resignation isn't such a thing anymore. The great stay, the big stay is here. And so people are just looking at their jobs, looking at the economy and thinking, you know what? PTO benefits, a consistent paycheck. Maybe this isn't so bad after all.
That paycheck every two weeks isn't such a bad idea after all, is it? Exactly. So does this mean that the era of quiet quitting and the great resignation are over?
It does seem to be that way. Many of the markets and research firms and all these people who study the workplace are pointing to an era called the big stay, the great stay, however you want to characterize it, where people are looking to stay. And while they're staying in their jobs, they want more benefits or more pay raises.
It wasn't that long ago we talked about lazy girl jobs, flexible, well-paying jobs that can be done from home and that end at 5 o'clock sharp. Where are the so-called lazy girls now?
It seems that the lazy girls are here to stay, but with a renewed purpose for their job. They want to feel like they're doing something with their work, something bigger, more meaningful, while also, like we said, getting that steady paycheck every two weeks.
But there's still plenty of office bashing that's going on on social media, like work talk posts on TikTok that you wrote about. Is there a mixed message there?
Absolutely. And it ebbs and flows depending on what's going on in the world. You know, there's times of the year where work talk is very quit your job, be your own boss, become an entrepreneur. And there's times of the year where people are like, you know what, actually, I like coming to work every day, putting on a cute little outfit and putting a smile on and interacting with people.
So how are people portraying their new office life in these online videos?
So for some time now, there's a popular format of people posting. who post videos called Come With Me to My 9 to 5, and they just document their 9 to 5. That's commuting to work, drinking their coffee, eating their lunch, typing at work, presentations, whatever they might do in their job. And it looks really mundane and silly, but it's also what a huge chunk of Americans do every day.
You mentioned that the younger workers who are now back in the office are actually staying in their corporate jobs. What are the numbers behind that?
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