Gen Z and millennial workers are getting more and more stressed out and overwhelmed at work, a study shows.
According to Bain & Company, young people — especially those from advanced economies — are most worried about money issues and how their careers will pan out.
Generation Z workers are those between the ages of 18 and 25, while millennials fall between the ages of 26 and 41.
About 61% of respondents under the age of 35 were most concerned about finances, job security and failing to meet their career goals in the next 10 years, a survey by Bain found.>Increasing debt
Research from Bain & Company also showed that younger employees from advanced economies may be earning less than the generations before them.
"The odds of achieving absolute upward mobility — earning more than data-test=”Pullquote”>In places like the US, where higher education receives limited public funding, universities are also saddling workers with crippling debt.Bain & Company
The earnings gap between young employees who enter high-skilled professions and those who do not is also widening. Yet about 40% of recent college graduates ended up in jobs that don't require them to have a higher education, the report said.
Many of those who could afford to attend college found themselves in a cycle of never-ending mounting debt.
"In places like the US, where higher education receives limited public funding, universities are also saddling workers with crippling debt," the report said.
"On top of everything else, younger workers will grapple with the burden of caring for an aging population. They also face the challenge of paying down public debt, which has ballooned as a result of the pandemic, at a time of slowing macroeconomic growth," the report said.
Pandemic fallout
Not all of the stressors younger workers face are unique to them, however. The pandemic has dealt a blow to nearly every economy in the world, with wide-ranging effects in the labor market at large.
The International Labour Organization (ILO), for example, expects global employment to return to pre-pandemic levels only in 2023.
The agency recently downgraded its 2022 labor market recovery forecast, and estimated global unemployment could reach 207 million this year. That's compared to 186 million in 2019 before the pandemic began.
Hours worked globally still remains 2% lower than pre-pandemic levels and employment in developing countries continues to be hit the hardest, it said.
"We're seeing the advanced economies pulling away from the low and middle income economies," said Sara Elder, senior economist at the ILO.
"The regions that are seeing the most difficult times in this recovery are indeed Southeast Asia, as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean," she said, referring to rising unemployment.
