![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/genz-HLJ7RHEZBBBW7DS5WDXL6XWV74.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWork hard, and success will follow. It’s the promise many generations grew up with. But an author says Gen Z isn’t buying it, not because they’re lazy or entitled, but because they no longer believe the deal applies to them.<\/p>\n
In an article for the New York Times, Emi Nietfeld contrasted her experience coming into the job market a decade ago, with those embarking on their working lives now.<\/p>\n
Nietfeld wrote a memoir, Acceptance, about her struggles to establish herself in the tech world and is often invited to speak to students on campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt more like the narrator of a historical novel. I started to wonder: Is my perspective relevant at all?\u201d, she wrote in the piece \u2018Gen Z Fell Out of Love With Work. I Don\u2019t Blame Them\u2019.<\/p>\n
Nietfeld grew up in a rodent-ridden apartment thanks to her mother\u2019s hoarding, had spells in foster care, and was homeless for a time living in her car. <\/p>\n
But she went on to get a computer science degree from Harvard, then her dream engineering job at Google.<\/p>\n
She grew up instilled with a strong work ethic, she told RNZ\u2019s Afternoons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis idea of work is good for work’s own sake. This Calvinist work ethic that it’s spiritually superior to always be striving.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A member of Gen Z takes a wellness break to watch the clouds while working from home. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n
But the process of get a degree, work hard and it will pay off no longer applies, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the young people are making a rational assessment of how likely sacrifice is to pay off. And they’re seeing that nowadays putting in the work, it’s not doing what it did for their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking for a job in 2026 is a demoralising experience, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many people are describing this as the worst job market in decades, years. It is absolutely crushing for young people who are putting their resumes into these websites that are just screening them out with AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
She spoke to students who are applying for \u201cliterally hundreds of jobs\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften in things that they have already done. So, one kid, he had already been doing IT, working with computers all through college, and he applied to over 200 jobs looking for a full-time role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those born between 1997 and 2012 will soon make up a third of our workforce and they want to do things differently – flexibility, work-life balance, a sense of purpose. (Source: Sunday)<\/p>\n
Despite the scarcity of jobs, Gen Z believe only a huge salary will set them up in life, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s some polling data that shows that Gen Z-ers said that being financially successful meant earning almost $US600,000 (about NZ$1 million), which is more money than 98% of Americans make.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of this may be social media driven, she says, part the cost-of-living crisis Gen Z finds itself in.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see people who a few years ago were affluent are now struggling to pay for groceries or making difficult decisions that they never thought they’d have to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the kids I was talking to, some were 19 years old, and they’re already worrying about how to support their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is also a generation with entrepreneurial aspirations, she says, with two-thirds of Gen Z surveyed wanting to own their own business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was talking to people who are training to be civil engineers or mechanical engineers. And when I asked them what they wanted to do in their future, they were all saying they wanted to open their own business. Not a single student I talked to named a company that they wanted to work for.\u201d<\/p>\n
She detected a sense of powerlessness in her research and interviews for the article.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what I found was that a lot of young people who are struggling right now feel really, really powerless. There’s been a tonne of research into this.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2024, a professor found that their students felt like they had the same amount of control over their lives as prisoners felt in 1966.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once a generation feels they have no agency in their future, that\u2019s a hard mindset to change, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think that’s really terrifying for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Work hard, and success will follow. It’s the promise many generations grew up with. But an author says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2567,138,1122,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-563408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-business","tag-employment","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}