Schlagzeile auf der Titelseite der Lokalzeitung (bz Basel): „Generation Z will nicht mehr arbeiten“

So, finally the spin doctors have made it into the front page headline maintaining that no one wants to work anymore:

My local newspaper in richy-rich Switzerland runs the following front page headline (translated): „How the young are jeopardizing Switzerland’s prosperity. Generation Z has no desire to achieve great things in the workplace, says psychologist XXX“.

The article claims that young people are too spoiled by their parents, prefer to work part-time and no longer identify themselves through their work, but by their leisure activities. In contrast, there is more competition in the labor market in Africa and Asia, which means that young people there see their chance in hard work.

So what is it that makes us in the richest country in the world, with the highest cost of living and – so far – the highest salaries, supposedly not try harder?

Well, it is very difficult to identify with a job where there are no longer any real jobs at all, but only low-paying jobs in surrogate companies, which are in reality nothing more than outsourced „cost centers“ of other, large corporations. They come in different corporate guises, but all have the same goal, namely not to pay us employees the standard industry rate or union pay scale and not to let us share in the corporate profits:

– Temporary employment agencies
– contract work companies
– covert temporary work
– bogus self-employment
– multi-level marketing
– in-house outsourcing (inside corporate structures)
– offshoring

– permanent internships

In many sectors, there are almost no real jobs in „real“ companies any more, apart from a few specialist jobs. Only in low-wage sectors such as gastronomy, the hotel industry or retail is there direct employment.

How are you supposed to define yourself through your work or even identify with your employer if you actually work in a “cost center” for some other corporation without receiving its wages and profit sharing?

I understand it. I could work at 100%, but I don’t want to. 80% is fine, and I don’t need more. It’s a bit less money, but I value my free time more than burning out on my job. So are we the bad ones now, just because we value our mental health more than we care about working ourselves to death? I don’t think so.