Gen Z Isn’t Just Job Hunting — They’re Taking Aim At Why We Work

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Searching for your first professional job during an economic downturn so severe its being compared to the Great Depression is bad enough, but doing so during a pandemic? Thats nightmare territory. Its also the exact dilemma that many young adults are facing right now. Even before the coronavirus, they werent entering the workforce in a time of great economic mobility. In fact, they were facing delays in getting started at all Gen Z are less likely to be working than previous generations did at their age, in part because Americans are retiring later, which also means millennials are lingering in lower-level positions longer, making it harder for the youngest adults to find and keep jobs. Now, though, the numbers are particularly dire. In July, the national unemployment rate was around 10.2%. That same month, the unemployment rate for those between 16 to 24 years old was 18.5%. These unemployment numbers are even more stark when you consider that they dont include everyone eligible to work, only those who are actively seeking work.
While Gen Z workers are just a few years removed from childhood, dreams of what they wanted to be when they grew up are fading increasingly into the rear view mirror. Theyre not alone in this few peoples dream jobs actually become a reality. Only about 10% of adults say that they currently hold their childhood dream job. A variety of different factors temper our wildest career dreams into a middle-ground of engaging-yet-feasible. But even that seems out of reach right now.
Its no wonder then that many young people living in America are fed up with antiquated ideas about work. They dont want to perform unpaid work before they move up the ladder its a system they cant afford. Some are skeptical about the value of a college education. Some are figuring out who they are beyond their identities as students or employees. Many of them recognize that they dont want their jobs to be their whole personality and yet, at the same time, they want to hold employers to higher ethical standards. Ahead, Refinery29 spoke to five Gen Z young adults on what its like to start a career during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yansha, 25, California
Yansha graduated in 2018 with a major in global studies and a minor in womens culture and development. By the time she left school, she had already submitted her application for the Peace Corps. That was my whole plan for post-grad, she says. But extenuating circumstances forced her to delay her plans and apply again the year after graduation. So in between that, I did substitute teaching, she says. I was pretty devastated, but I just needed something to fill the time. I worked as a waitress as well.
This spring, she was finally able to leave for her placement in Madagascar. And then after a month, the coronavirus hit and we all got evacuated back to America, she says. My life was just in shambles.
The Peace Corps was my dream since I was a freshman in college, she says. Her project in Madagascar was supposed to focus on agriculture extension, helping implement more sustainable farming methods in the local community. We were going to plant small gardens in our communities, she says.
When we found out we were coming back, everyone was crying and devastated, she recalls. We literally were ready to leave our lives in America behind, sold everything, donated all our clothes. People quit their jobs, too. I knew some people who already had their masters degree and had a really good corporate job they quit their job, saying, Oh this is going to be this life-changing experience for me, Im going to go do something different because Im over the corporate life.
Everything happened very quickly. My flight was the day before they were gonna close Madagascars borders, she says. I transferred four times across two days of traveling, because so many airports were shut down. I remember transferring in Istanbul and if you looked at the screen, every single flight was canceled, canceled, canceled. The airports themselves were crowded, panicked pandemonium. It was kind of like Black Friday, Yansha says.
Back home, both her brother and mother had also become unemployed due to the pandemic. My dads in China, and hes just stuck there, she says. She tried to help her mom apply for unemployment benefits, but the phones were always busy. I was calling every single day from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. I swear, hundreds of phone calls a day. I think after a month I finally got through, she recalls. Thats when they found out that her mothers social security number had been stolen and used to apply for disability benefits back in 2008 and no one in the family had realized it until that moment. She still hasnt been able to receive any unemployment payments. We stopped calling, because I wasted so many hours of my life trying to get through to them, Yansha says.
In the meantime, shes picked up hobbies outside of career interests. I saw some TikTok videos of people longboard dancing, so Ive been learning how to longboard dance, she says. I do that almost every day. Im also taking music production classes.
As a child, her career dreams had fluctuated. Oh, I wanted to be an ice cream factory owner because I really liked ice cream, she says. And then when I was 11, I actually lived in China for a whole year, and I was like, Im gonna be president one day.
Just as those plans gave way to others, shes working on accepting that the Peace Corps just might not pan out. Yansha cites a Chinese saying that essentially advises people to go with nature. If the river is flowing in one direction, and youre swimming so hard and fighting it you can swim as hard as you can, but its trying to take you somewhere else, she explains. Why not let the river take you somewhere new? You might discover a beautiful city youve never known before. Im trying to adopt this [view]. Because so many things are out of my control.
She used to believe her ideal career had to be overseas, which is partly why she wanted to join the foreign service program. But now, I could be okay staying in America if Im still making an impact, she says. Honestly, with all the stuff going on in our country right now, the George Floyd protests it opened my eyes. Theres so many problems that we have in our own country. We have this whole idea of a white savior complex, that were gonna go help these other people in these other countries. But we have so much to fix in our own country.
Shes continuing to apply to jobs, mostly in non-profits, but she doesnt want to just work anywhere. She wants a fulfilling job where shes helping people and at the same time, a job that doesnt consume all her energy is key. She sees this as a generational divide. You know that concept of live to work versus work to live? I think we very much want to work to live, she says.
Jennifer, 22, Texas
Jennifer became an arts and A/V teacher at a Texas high school only recently. Its not what she intended to be doing. In college, she majored in communications with a focus on media arts and journalism, and had a minor in photography.
Like many other college seniors, she graduated this past May in a virtual ceremony. It was really weird, she recalls. You wait for this day your whole college career. I had pictured what dress I was going to buy.
Her original plan was to get a job related to film: I wanted to be involved with just any type of film festival. I really wanted a job with South by Southwest or the Austin Film Festival. I applied to the Austin Film Festival and had an interview and everything.
Then, of course, the pandemic came. Late March or early April, I got an email saying that the position was eliminated. So I was like, Is there a way for me to do these things that I like while also having a job thats at least somewhat stable? Thats when I decided to get the teaching certificate, she says.
While a job as a high school teacher may be a lot more stable than one in the film or festival industry right now, it has also become one of the most dangerous and emotionally trying jobs of the pandemic. Jennifers school has a lot of low-income students who dont have all the technology necessary for virtual learning. Its really hard to connect with these students, she says. The school has to work really hard to get this technology out to them. On the other hand, shes felt really supported by the other teachers and parents.
The first three weeks of class were taught online, but now, in-person classes have begun. Students were allowed to choose whether to come back or stay virtual, Jennifer says. Not too many chose in-person learning, so I only have about a max of six students in any given class.
Though shes glad to have a fulfilling job right now, its been a challenge adjusting to a reality that doesnt match up with her original plans. I was always one of those kids who just pictured all of my dreams coming true and doing whatever I wanted, she says. If you had asked me in high school, I would have been like, Yeah, Im going to go to Columbia in New York and then Im going to live in New York and Im going to be some, like, posh movie writer.
And while shes altered course on her career for now, there are some jobs she could never see herself doing. I would rather work a service industry job than be working some corporate job where I sit in a cubicle and my mental health goes down the drain, she says.
One big thing, especially for me, is working for an ethical company, she says. I think people older than us, like the people over 40, were just cool with getting a secure job, even if it meant working for some man who killed all the rainforests. Ill look into a company and see whats up. If they dont support the things I support, I wont even consider them.
The pandemic has changed her perspective on other things as well I think something that Ive really learned is to remind yourself that a career and your accomplishments dont mean as much as people say they do, she says. I was one of those kids who based my self-worth on my grades, my GPA, getting offers from these internships. Now with the pandemic where everythings just being pulled out from under you I needed to find who I was outside of school and outside of accomplishments.
Skylar, 22, New York
Skylar recently received some good news she was called back part-time to her job at a chocolate shop. Im not, like, officially back, she says. Ive just kind of been going in a little bit when they need extra help, which is better than nothing. I love working there. Its very small, its just the owners and a couple employees.
Her original plan was to transition into a full-time theater management job after graduating this past May with a degree in theater design and management. That, of course, did not happen.
I was at my job at the chocolate store when they announced that Broadway was getting shut down, she recalls. At that point I feel like everyone was expecting it to be a month-long thing. At the time in March, I was applying for fellowships and internships for the fall. [Now] I dont even know if the theater companies are still going to be around.
Im still hoping to be able to stick it out until something comes back, she says. I think theater will be fine. Weve had theater forever and its survived other plagues before. But its just the waiting game.
Of course, theres been people who arent in the arts industry who have said, Now its time to find a real job. Now its time to find a stable, realistic career, says Skylar. She usually replies to this by asking, What have you been doing during quarantine? And they always answer that theyve been watching movies and TV shows. Im like, who do you think is making that? Thats what I want to do. I feel like theres always that kind of attitude about people working in the arts. But also, its not just the arts industry. I have friends who are business majors and they cant find a job either.
It wasnt like she had unrealistic ideas about what it would be like to start a career in theater. I always expected to have some sort of retail or service job to support the work in the arts until I got some more experience, she says. But I expected to be able to work in the field that I graduated in. Especially being in New York this is the best place to get entry-level theater jobs because theres so many theater companies and opportunities. Theyre always looking for people who can work for a little bit cheaper.
But shes been recognizing more and more that this is a double-edged sword. Young, passionate people too often accept extremely low pay (or sometimes no pay at all) just to get a foot in the door. Its a really archaic system, she says. She recalls having an unpaid internship during school that took three full days of her week. It definitely puts a class barrier to get into art industries. And Im hoping actually that theres a reset when we go back, that we had all this time to talk about these things as well as other issues in the theater, like racism and sexism. I hope that we dont just go back to the exact model that we had before.
Like others, Skylar is wary over allowing a career to eat up all her time. I think that I would want a job where I feel fulfilled, that I am excited to go to but also one that doesnt dictate my entire life, she says. I dont want to only live to work. [I want to] make enough while Im there, and also be able to have a family or travel.
Ive especially seen it in the arts industry, this idea of hustling your whole life, she continues. When youre just starting out you might need that extra hustle to get ahead, but I see people in their 30s and 40s and they dont see their kids, if they even have kids. As much as I want to work in the arts, I dont really want that.
Skylar has also been pursuing new hobbies during quarantine. I think identity has been something Ive been thinking a lot about. Ive been a student my whole life thats been a big part of my identity. Theres been a lack of closure for that, she says. I think it has been good to figure out who I am other than being a student, or other than being a worker in the arts. I got back into reading for fun instead of just reading for school or work, and finding other outlets through art that Im not getting paid for.
One of the biggest differences Skylar sees in the way her generation treats work is marking a clear line between work and personal lives. I actually was just talking to one of my former professors about this, about how she was seeing that my generation has been setting stricter boundaries about what is our job and what isnt our job, she says. I shouldnt be expected to answer an email within 15 minutes, 24/7.
Christian, 22, Massachusetts
Even if you dont want to be defined by your career, college debt often means that, long after youve graduated, youre defined by the choice to pursue post-secondary education. You need a well-paying job not just for living expenses, but also to slowly chip away at your student loans. Its one reason why Christian went down a different path.
Coming out of high school, I wanted to do computer science, he says. So he went to college for a semester. I didnt really like it there. Eventually, he found an apprenticeship as a pipefitter at a government shipyard and began working there full-time.
I did that for about a year, and we had academic classes during the apprenticeship that we had to take, he says. While completing an assignment, he found out about a program called Apprenti, which connects people to apprenticeships at tech companies with a focus on helping women and underrepresented POC get into the sector. I ended up in the first cohort of their software development apprentices, Christian says.
The exorbitant cost of college was definitely a deterrent for him, but he also realized college wasnt a good fit because of the pace. When Im interested in something, Im hyper-interested in it, he says. When you go to college, you have to take all those gen ed [classes]. There are some subjects that Im not super interested in, and its hard to hold my attention. Apprenticeships, on the other hand, hone in on exactly the knowledge and skills youll need for this job. And in a sea of unpaid internships, apprenticeships payyou for the labor you do while learning on the job.
Apprenticeships havent been very widespread in the U.S., but the number of programs has been growing. The Department of Labor recently began expanding state apprenticeship programs across the country, encouraging more people of all ages to pursue a career path that doesnt necessitate a prohibitively expensive college degree. After all, its not all that useful to advise young people to reject the traditional college experience unless there are plenty of alternative pathways in place.
I think most people just dont know of [apprenticeships] yet, in all honesty, says Christian. Out of high school, people are like, Well I want a tech job, so I have to go to school, but its not like that anymore. Personally I think its just the best way to learn something. You get thrown right into the fire.
After he got accepted into the apprenticeship, he went through an 18-week coding boot camp. He admits it has been difficult adapting to a new job and career remotely. You cant quickly ask a question to a coworker as you pass them in the hallway. You dont have that immediate feedback that you would have if you were in the office, he says.
But, especially when COVID-19 has become an ever-present reality leading to long-term unemployment for many, Christian is glad he took the apprenticeship route into the tech industry. Im very grateful for the whole thing, knowing I wouldnt have to worry about paying my rent or food or things like that, he says. And in a time when many young people are having to readjust their expectations, Christian feels hes ended up in the same ballpark of where he wanted to be as a child, when he wanted to grow up to be a videogame designer.
The best career advice hes gotten so far came from the manager he was placed with during the apprenticeship: He pretty much just told me to take it one at a time, because there were so many different things that I was going to learn over the entire experience. The mentality of taking it day by day is, of course, useful in all aspects of life right now.
Christian too believes that his generation looks at careers differently, shaped largely by forces out of their control. The cost of a college education is one big issue. But I think, also, my generation looks for more camaraderie in a job, he says. Not just as a place to hustle and make lots of money, but a space to forge meaningful friendships, if possible. Americans today spend less time with coworkersthan they used to in decades past, even though studies have shown that having a close friend at work is important to job satisfaction.
Christian also feels that the work-life balance these days can tip worryingly toward the work end. The other day I was working and something that caught up to me was that, back when you were in school, youd go to school during the week, youd have the weekends, and then youd have vacations, he says. Thats not possible in the working world. American adults work all week, sometimes work during the weekends, and hardly ever take vacations.
But hes hopeful that COVID-19 will help workplaces embrace more flexibility for good. Once this pandemic blows over, I think many companies are going to see that working from home isnt necessarily an unproductive thing, he says.
Rohan, 19, Virginia
Rohan was a second-year student attending college in Virginia when the coronavirus became a national emergency. I was living in the dorms. We went home for spring break and then our entire life kind of changed within a few days, he says.
Hes studying psychology with an emphasis on medical humanities and environmental health disparities but hes also an environmental health activist working who works to connect issues of climate justice to health justice.
His personal stake in environmental health comes from his father. My parents came to this country from India. India has pretty bad pollution, but they came to this country and everyone thinks Americas such a godsend, you know? But I noticed that when my dad commuted and spent his day in D.C., hed come home and hed cough himself to sleep, says Rohan. I used to have the bedroom right next to my parents room. I think his lungs were trying to catch up from the days damage. I feel like minorities in this country are putting their quality of life on the line for a paycheck. He realized that Black and Brown communities in America routinely suffer from environmental health disparities.
Ive done a lot of work over the past few years in this field, Rohan says. Hes currently climate advisor to the American Lung Association and the director of research and development at the youth-led non-profit Climate Cardinals, which works to make climate crisis information accessible in as many languages as possible. He also recently founded The Community Check-Up, an organization dedicated to framing the climate change discussion as a public health emergency. But a lot of [the work] is unpaid, and unfortunately not as valued in I guess what youd call corporate America or the traditional job market, he says. He has yet to be paid for any of this work.
I was actually supposed to intern over the summer at the Department of Health and Human Services, he says. And though it got canceled because of COVID-19, it was going to be unpaid. That was something I was really debating, he says. Before it got canceled I was like, Is it really worth it? Should I just work?
Currently, Rohan is working at a fast-food restaurant to pay the bills and keep a roof over his head. I dont get very much sleep, to be honest. And thats not the healthiest thing, I know. [Older people] see that youth have so much energy, they have the momentum to make change, but oftentimes were also just trying to pay our bills, he says. You cant just keep exploiting youth labor.
He believes a collective recognition of just how much Gen Z labor is exploited has grown during the pandemic. Ive been really fortunate that Ive even had those opportunities, but it would be nice to really be able to do something in your field and contribute without just giving free labor, he says.
According to Rohan, this is why were seeing more youth-led initiatives and movements. If theyre not getting paid working for someone, they might as well go their own way. Especially for the climate crisis, he says. I cant wait until Im 30 years old when I have a solid paycheck coming in.
Despite his fathers persistent cough, his own parents didnt connect it to an issue of climate justice at first. When I talked to my parents about climate change, initially they were like, Why are you wasting your time with this kind of stuff?
But since he started engaging in environmental health, his parents have come around. They began to see the connection between climate, public health, and communities of color where theres less investment, less stringent environmental regulations. Im not going to say my parents are the most woke people, says Rohan. Im not sure if thats ever going to be true. But its getting there. The work [we do] is not only valuable to American society, but its especially valuable to the Asian diaspora, especially our parents.
I dont really want to get to the point where work is just for money, he says. A lot of immigrants especially are told, you just gotta keep working, keep hustling. And its hard to reckon with that sometimes.
I think the worst advice Ive gotten is to follow a cookie-cutter method of success, he says. Go to college, go to grad school, XYZ. That cookie-cutter method really doesnt work anymore. It might guarantee you a job somewhere, but it might not be rewarding, it might not even actually pay your bills, nor will it be something youre proud of. Knowing this is equally refreshing, equally frustrating.
On the other hand, the best advice hes gotten is to stay authentic to your roots. I come from a certain background, and I know my experiences with that background, he says. You dont have to save the entire world. But you can make an effort to save part of it, and I know where I can make the most impact and thats within the Asian diaspora.
When he envisions an ideal job in the future, he knows what kind of culture he doesnt want. I dont want to be used as token diversity, he says. Theyre hiring [POC] at such low positions, where they just take all the credit for their work or they just use them as a diversity example on their website. Oh, look, this is our chief diversity officer. I was reading this study that by 2050, most people will actually be mixed. The demographics of the U.S. are changing, and so should work culture to really value minority youth labor.
Its a cliché, but this year was supposed to be our year full of independence, opportunity, or at least a few weekend afternoons spent with more than 10 friends with fewer than six feet between us. But with COVID-necessary social distancing, a shitty job market, and closed campuses, 2020 hasnt given us much to work with. Past generations have had to deal with a recession, social upheaval, and changing norms: Weve had to deal with all of it at once.
So, what now? What do we do with our careers, our relationships, and our lives? How do we move forward when were still stuck in our high school bedrooms? These stories are for us filled with the resources, blueprints, and people who are finding ways to turn all this garbage into something like lemonade.
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