research<\/a> by Deloitte.<\/p>\nSal, a New York-based compensation specialist who declined to provide his full name for privacy reasons, believes his generation is facing new hurdles in the workplace such as rising mental health concerns, and stagnant wage increases in the face of inflating living costs.<\/p>\n
Despite these challenges, Sal, 24, said he is still expected to conform to an outdated working structure, putting in long hours without the payoff older generations had. \u201cWe\u2019re graduating with a high amount of debt [from university] and then working a job that is burning us out, and it\u2019s not even paying for this debt,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of people my age are job hopping because they\u2019re burnt out or cannot find longevity in their roles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sal\u2019s first year in his current role led him to seek therapy because the workload seemed to be a \u201cconstant queue\u201d and he felt perpetually anxious despite \u201cbeing in a spot that is better than most people in my generation\u201d. He was diagnosed with a general anxiety disorder.<\/p>\n
Even in South Korea, a country known for its notoriously long working hours, gen Z is rejecting this lifestyle.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people really value their free time after work, and prefer having enough rest, flexible work environmentsand more freedom,\u201d said Lee. \u201cThe younger generation believes working overtime, too, often can sometimes be seen as a sign of poor time management, so people don\u2019t think working long hours is always a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
For some, long working hours are inevitable. Others are choosing to endure them temporarily, in the hope of buying back their time later.<\/p>\n
Jane, who also declined to disclose her surname, is working two full-time jobs with the goal of escaping corporate life in four years, when she turns 30. Based in Toronto, she splits her 70-hour workweek between a 9-to-5 marketing manager role and a 5-to-11 call service representative position. Both are remote.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first 9 to 5 internship experience in university was so horrible that it made me very anti-career and anti-work, to the point where I wouldn\u2019t do this until I was 65,\u201d Jane said. \u201cThe older management clearly expected employees to make work their entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Jane\u2019s previous marketing role with a different company, she drowned in infinite workdays which ultimately led her into a spiral of depression. The management team scheduled meetings off-the-clock, chastised employees who left on time, and expected workers to check messages 24\/7, including on holidays like Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would just be very anxious all the time, and I would lose sleep over it,\u201d Jane explained. \u201cI feel like getting sucked into work and over-obsessing while thinking that that\u2019s your life is definitely the wrong approach. Work-life balance<\/a> is so important.\u201d<\/p>\nJane experienced burnout numerous times since entering the workforce after college. However, she now sets firm working boundaries and communicates her bandwidth to her team. She refuses to work off-the-clock and prioritizes time with loved ones instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve realized is that the only way to fix burnout is to leave the company, because if the environment makes you stressed, you cannot fully mentally protect yourself,\u201d Jane said. \u201cI\u2019m working to live, not living to work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is 10pm in Seoul, South Korea, but Hyun Jin Lee is not heading home. The recent college…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[28,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-15514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}