The biggest complaints were that young workers were unprepared, unwilling to complete a full workday, wanted to start late and could not communicate properly.
The Daily Mail also quoted recruiter Tammie Christofis Ballis, who said young people were suffering from “interview anxiety,” including being afraid to pick up the phone for a potential employer and even taking their parents along as moral support in interviews.
Mental health has far more care and awareness than it did a few decades ago — and rightly so — but the pendulum has swung so far that any kind of uncomfortable experience is a major issue.
Kids are no longer taught resilience and are stripped of all responsibility.
There is no danger in life. All the fun equipment has been ripped out of playgrounds out of fear that a child might hurt himself or break an arm.
They aren’t trusted to leave on their bikes in the morning with friends and return when the sun goes down — they must be in sight at all times.
And when they are out of sight, they’re often tracked via an electronic device.
Those devices have become a poison — enslaving kids to a digital world instead of the real one.
Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you fail. But if you don’t learn how to deal with that at a young age, then of course it will seem like the end of the world when you’re a young adult.
Winning in your football competition or the school sports day teaches that effort and hard work are virtues.
It also teaches sportsmanship and how to appropriately handle success.
Losing demonstrates that you can’t succeed all the time and how to handle the sadness of failure.
Moving out of your parents’ home at 18 was once a right of passage – now it’s a daunting proposition.
My grandfather left school at 14 to become an apprentice butcher, which wasn’t uncommon in his day, in part to support his family.
I’m not suggesting that children should be yanked out of school and sent to work full time, but it certainly instilled a sense of responsibility that is lacking today.
The process of developing responsibility – be it for yourself, a property, a job or a family – has been delayed.
Far too many school leavers go to university to study degrees in which they have little interest because they’ve been told it’s the right thing to do, thus delaying their development even further.
So is it any wonder that Gen Z can’t hack it in the workplace?
They’ve been patted on their backs their whole childhoods, told that they’ve done a good job no matter what, holed up in their bedrooms staring at screens – and now the idea of applying for or holding down a job seems impossible.
Young people aren’t inherently lazy, but they have been raised in a world that encourages laziness and mediocrity.
For the latest in lifestyle, top headlines, breaking news and more, visit nypost.com/lifestyle/
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.