The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it Resolved, Gen Z is unemployable

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Bare-Minimum Mondays. Quiet Quitting. Lazy Girl Job. Ask a Boomer or Gen Xer about their younger employee, and they might point to these viral tik tok slogans as how they see their new coworkers. Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z is the latest cohort to enter the workforce. They are criticized for wanting it all - work-life balance, high pay, great benefits - and wanting it right away. They expect their work assignments to align with their ideological goals, they aren’t afraid to call out senior coworkers for creating a toxic workplace, they complain constantly about burnout, and if their demands aren’t met, they are happy to quit (sometimes very publicly). Exasperated employers argue that seniority and pay is earned through years of hard work, long hours, and loyalty to the company. In their view, Gen Z are entitled, lazy, and in for a rude awakening. Zoomers, on the other hand, paint a different story. They are entering the workforce in a period of crushing student loan debt, growing wealth inequality, and wage stagnation. The traditional labor market that benefited boomers does not work for them. Unlike their parents, they want to enjoy a home life instead of bragging about 80-hour work weeks. And they want to feel passionate and engaged about how they spend the majority of their waking hours. To Gen Z, it is the older generation that have been living - nay, existing - in an unhealthy and unequal capitalist market place, and it's high time things change, lest companies will be left without young workers and the ability to adapt and flourish in a rapidly changing economy. Arguing for the motion is Craig Sneesby, Managing Director at u&u Recruitment Partners Arguing against the motion is Jake Bjorseth, Founder & CEO at Trndsttrs, a Gen Z agency helping brands understand and reach Gen Z   The host of this podcast is Ricki Gurwitz Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].  To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran Lynch  Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you're a journalist and people don't trust you, it's always your fault. These people need to be represented. They are Canadian. They deserve to have a voice and a seat at the table. It is time to go back to the office, and the time is now. Russia had reasons to be concerned. They had reasons to be fearful. We're at an absolute turning point in reproduction. This is the problem with realism. They just treat all countries the same. They don't distinguish between dictatorships and democracies. Welcome to the Monk Debates.

Every episode, we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day to arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved. Gen Z is unemployable. This video is permission to do the absolute bare minimum today. The busy girl job does not mean that you're being lazy. It is no dig on women. It's not you being lazy or being a jerk at your job. If you have a lazy girl job or you want one, I love you so much. The reality is many of us that are in my age or a little older or a little younger are working jobs that do not care about us as people.

And I'm going to say that again because I think that's a very, very important distinction that a lot of people are forgetting. I am not going to kill myself over a job that doesn't care about me as a human being. I am not going to put in a 60-hour work week and pull myself up by my bootstraps for a job that does not care about me as a person. Hello, I'm your guest moderator, Rakey Gerwitz. Bare minimum Mondays, quiet quitting, lazy girl job. Ask a boomer or Jen Exer about their younger employee, and they might point to these viral TikTok slogans as how they view their new coworkers.

Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z is the latest cohort to enter the workforce. They're criticized for wanting it all, work-life balance, high-pay value alignment, and wanting it right away. They're picky about their work projects. They aren't afraid to call out senior co-workers for creating a toxic workplace. They complain constantly about burnout, and if their demands aren't met, they are happy to quit and sometimes very publicly. Exasperated employers argue that seniority in pay is earned through years of hard work, long hours, and loyalty to the company.

In their view, Gen Z is entitled, lazy, and in for a rude awakening. Zoomers, Gen Z, that is, paint a different story. They say they are entering the workforce in a period of crushing student loan debt, growing wealth inequality, and wage stagnation. The traditional labor market that benefited boomers does not work for them anymore. Unlike their parents, they want to enjoy a home life, instead of bragging about 80-hour work weeks, and they want to feel passionate and engaged

about how they spend the majority of their waking hours. To Gen Z, it is the older generation that have been fostering an unhealthy and unequal capitalist marketplace and its high time things change, or companies will be left without young workers and the ability to adapt and flourish in a rapidly changing economy. On this installment of the monk debates, we challenge the essence of these arguments by debating the motion, be it resolved, Gen Z is unemployable. Arguing for the motion is Craig Sneesby, managing director at U&U recruitment partners.

And arguing against the motion today is Jake Bureceth. He's the founder and CEO of Trendsetters, a Gen Z agency which helps brands understand and reach Gen Z. Craig, Jake, welcome to the Monk Debates. Thank you, Ricky. Heather, thanks so much. So Craig, you are arguing in favor of our resolution today. Gen Z is unemployable. I'm going to put a few minutes on the clock for you.

Take it away. Yeah, thanks, Ricky. Look, and I think it's important to say I probably don't want to cast a blanket over every single Gen Zeta out there. I mean, I think that would be a little unfair. I think, you know, there's a definite shift in the way people want to work and generationally how they are working. I think, you know, there's probably at the moment a noisy minority for Gen Z that's potentially damaging a little bit of the reputation for that, for that workforce.

No questioning. It's the future of the workforce. I think for me, there's just a little bit of a gap between experience and expectations. So, you know, the mature age workforce, the Gen Y, X and boomers have probably been around long enough to see some economic cycles that I don't think Jeddns said have seen yet. And while I think every generation had sit here and undoubtedly claim they'd like flexibility and better working conditions, I think those with the experience know what goes up, definitely goes down in the employment cycle.

And, you know, globally care of COVID, we're seeing job markets boom. and continue to. We're seeing global productivity issues and mobility issues in the workforce. Inevitably, for my 24-odd years in the recruitment industry, it will change. And there will be times coming very soon where unemployment rates rise.

We're seeing it through the US at the moment. I'm down here in Australia and we're definitely seeing it here as well. So we're all of a sudden seeing a claw back on employment, which is based on the fact that businesses have overhired and needed to hire more resources to generate the high profits they have been. And now there's pressure on the bottom line.

And unfortunately, the biggest cost in most businesses is headcount. So I think, you know, ultimately, from my perspective, there needs to be a healthy balance between the two, you know, achieving the lifestyle, the right work balance, but also, you know, I guess being the hardworking workforce of the future. And at the end of the day, we're really talking about a white-collar problem here. You know, the frontline workers don't have the ability to call on a bare minimum Monday. You know, if you had a nurse in a hospital saying they just want to go a little bit slower on a Monday, that would be a crazy scene.

So we're really focused in probably more on a white-collar workforce entitlement. Okay. Thank you, Craig. Jake, you are arguing against our resolution today. Gen Z is unemployable. You are of the Gen Z generation. Let's hear your opening statement. I wouldn't even go as far to say, argue against, but actually argue for the case that this is the most talented generation yet.

I think everything we hear about this generation that comes out from the mouths of CEOs, leaders today, large organizations, the press articles we read, the one thing they all have in common is none of those come from a Gen Z perspective. These are all, frankly, false narratives that are rooted in the flaws and insecurities that exist in today's organizations, companies, and those in leadership, and frankly, those in power, you know, when it comes to that. What I know to be true and what all of my fellow Gen Z know to be true is that this is the most talented generation yet. when we talk about digital native, it's important to note, and to quote Bain here, you know, from the Batman movie, while millennials, they, in Gen X, while they adopted, you know, the digital world and the internet, we were literally born in it. We were forged by it. And that inherent difference is the reason why we see such incredible innovation and entrepreneurship. This is set to be the most entrepreneurial generation yet with 56% planning to start a business before the age of 20. So as I look at the problems and the remarks that stem from organizations and leaders today, they are highlighting a self-inflicted problem that exists organizationally, not a true description of who this generation really is. Okay.

Thank you, Jake. Craig, it's your turn for a rebuttal. Do you have anything you want to say in response to Jake's opening argument? I think Jake raises some good points there. I mean, for me, there's some differences between what's been achieved and what could be achieved. And while I don't disagree that this current generation coming through could potentially be the smartest. I mean, past generations have probably got runs on the board that I think far exceed. The digital environment, this world, modern workforce is born into absolutely is completely different to what I was born into.

So no questioning there. For me, I think one of the greatest challenges probably comes down to mental health. And, you know, the argument could be said that, you know, my generation is the one that should be struggling with mental health on the amount of work and hours that we do. I actually see it the other way. I surveyed our workforce, so we've got 700 odd staff and contractors. Our Gen Zs spend over 17 hours on average per week on social media. Now, your brain is not built to take in that much digital content separate to your actual day job.

So the ability to switch off the brain, and Gen X, I should say, came in at about three and a half hours. So a significant gap between the amount of consumption and noise and cloudiness going into the everyday mind. And when we talk about that total ability to relax and disconnect, it doesn't just come from the workforce, workforce. It comes from multiple channels. So for me, I think, you know, planning startups, you know, Jake's got a good stat there on startups. It doesn't always equal success. It can equal a lot of stress. People not prepared to run businesses. Micro economy is obviously a huge part of every probably U.S. and Australian economy, but we see a lot of fall off in that sense. So sometimes actually going through the corporate channels, getting enough experience before you graduate on to

to running your own business can be very healthy. Thank you, Craig. Jake, this is your turn now to respond to anything that Craig said in his opening statement or his rebuttal. Yeah, I would start by saying I have a Led Zeppelin poster behind me. I'm an old soul. So I truly believe that there's not necessarily in either or here and that bridges need to be built between generations as opposed to what tends to take place in the media and discussion world, which is just blaming one another.

That said, it's impossible to truly understand or be understood in the case of leaders today without understanding one other's perspective. And I think that is the bottom line issue here. And so as we look at the effects and what I would call the symptoms that we label this generation with and some of the problems that we see mental health cited as one example, among many, being lazy, not wanting to work, job hopping, all of these things, we need to look at the cause of those. And we need to realize that the cause is not because they were simply born and raised and decided to go down this path, but the cause, I think, is a lot bigger. And, you know,

this generation, we didn't choose to be born in this environment. We didn't choose to be born in the social media era. Frankly, if you're not on social media at that capacity, being a part of this generation, you're not going to be in the know with what the hell is going on. And so it's not a linear choice to not be involved because to not be involved is to be ostracized and away from the culture and community of these platforms that we grow up in. And I think the bigger picture here looking at the cause is realizing in first world white collar situations, we were told the version of the American dream or more, you know, the kind of first world white collar dream, which is you go to school and you work hard and you go and get a degree and then you go get a white collar job. And yet throughout all of our childhood and as we've grown up, it's been proven to be anything but true. We saw that we were in elementary and middle school. What happened in 2008? We saw our parents lose their jobs that were once that claimed to be the most stable jobs simply because of our economy. And then what happened is we were graduating high school as we were.

we were going into college, as we were graduating college, the most pivotal moments of one's life, not unique to Gen Z, but all ages, the most memories that you make in your lifespan, if you ask any age cohort, happen between the ages of 16 and 26. These are memorable moments and experiences that your outlook on life gets built on. All of those moments, senior year prom, going to college, getting on campus, totally stripped away, not including the obvious, business impact being the jobs, the internships torn from them, and this idea that I have worked my entire life for this moment and this thing and now being taken away. So there's a bigger cause that we need to empathetically look at understanding before we can tactically or strategically

really address any of these problems. So Craig, I just, I want to ask you, because you are an employer. As you said, you have a big company. I think you said 700 employees. What is your experience with the Gen Z workers that are coming to work for you right now? To be honest, I think it goes down to your industry and, you know, not all industry hire the same profile. So, you know, there's, you know, great diversity in terms of the types of workforce in our world where we operate. I mean, we want people to have flexibility. We actually have a really flexible workforce policy and we want people to be able to achieve the balance.

But we also want people to be ambitious and sort of self-motivated and driven. You know, for me, as I said, I don't throw a blanket over the category. I think there's so many people who are so incredibly successful and pushing hard and whether that be as a freelancer or starting their own business or actually working for an accounting firm or a law firm. I mean, you know, good on them. I think, as I said, there's just this noisy minority, things like this bare minimum Monday or, you know, quiet quitting.

I mean, these are social media tools used to catch attention and gain popularity. And I just, you know, there's... Can you just for our audience explain what those are? Because some people might not be aware of them. Yeah, so bare minimum Monday is a movement that came out saying, basically on Monday we want to enter the working week as softly as possible. and just do the bare minimum to slowly build up based on the fact that, you know, that Sunday night anxiety before you come back to work.

And so it's sort of like a nice gentle way to ease into the week. And I've got to be honest, if you compress your week into four days instead of five, I must admit I'd be more anxious on Monday night knowing I've still got a lot to get done. So the quiet win, there's a TikTok craze at the moment going around, you know, people recording themselves, resigning to their bosses, you know, getting, in some cases, millions of views. In some cases, wearing the brand of the company on their shirt while they're recording themselves. I mean, to be honest, it's a respect piece. And as I said, this is a minority. It's a very small minority doing this stuff. And I'm all for making

sure this generation isn't tarnished by those people. But honestly, there's got to be a level of respect of those that actually are paying the wages and actually are trying to, you know, in my case, trying to create a workplace everyone's enjoying and having fun and wanting, you know, Jake mentioned community and I 100% agree social media is a big marketplace and community that so is the workplace. The workplace is a place where so many people come together and forge friendships and relationships. And so, you know, like I think absolutely we've got to find the right healthy balance between, you know, all generations being able to understand where everyone's coming from. Jake, what do you think of quiet quitting?

Yeah, to your point, it is a very loud minority. I don't think it's indicative of necessarily a generational cohort. I think it's along the lines of one of those things that, you know, because a certain individual does it or a few individuals do it, it becomes. And what's more important, you know, obviously we know, this is just a handful of individuals and, you know, anyone who can truly, look at the picture and see it day to day, understands that this is just a minority, this isn't a generational response. My issue with these trends is how they get publicized and reported as so much more than just a small minority promoting this material. And they very quickly get labeled and that becomes the perception inside or inside of organizations. And before you know it, now you have negative perception inside of organizations that is determining how these things get made. When we look at these major media publications reporting and trying to label this generation with one stroke because of certain social media trends, which aren't rooted in any true

data at all, that's where I think the root of the problem actually is and how this gets reported and then creates a label. And now we're talking about legitimate business. decisions being made by one's perception of a generation because you read a headline. So, Jake, just to build on that, resume builder surveyed 1,300 people in managerial positions. They're across different industries in the U.S. And half of the respondents said it was difficult to work with Gen Z, and 79% said they find them the most difficult generation to have in the workplace. What is your response to that? Yeah, my favorite, there's even some that have gone as far to say working with Gen Z in the workplace is as challenging as working with individuals who don't even speak their same language as them.

And I think, oddly enough, that metaphor in this context is quite applicable. You know, when it comes to from a management perspective, I think it would always be expected, regardless of generation, that the youngest employees that are, you know, new, to the workforce, new to that particular job, to that arena, to that company, those are going to usually require the most effort, right? Like, I wouldn't expect the senior VP that's been there for 25 years to not know, you know, the standard protocol on certain things, but the individual who's been there six months and the entirety of their business careers two years, I would expect them to maybe not know the reply all on an email chain or something of that nature or run into, very common kind of just annoying, tedious issues that I can speak personally from, from a management

perspective is, you know, quite annoying to deal with. You know, so I think it comes down to level setting expectations. What do you expect of new early young entry level level employees? And furthermore, to put it back on those organizations, what is the education and training systems internally and protocols that are doing anything to remedy that. Are we still running on archaic systems where we're doing a two-week kind of crash course as they get integrated into the workforce and they sit in a room and watch a TV that has a series of 1990-styles videos of how to work and operate in the workplace? Or do we have an interactive education module? Do we have resources for young people to learn in the context?

that they learn best. That's where I would put it, you know, back on those organizations to ask, what are you doing to expedite and accelerate their learning and transitory period to avoid those complications. If you're enjoying the Friday Focus podcast as a donor, but haven't yet taken that next step of becoming a monk supporter, now is your opportunity. For the next couple of weeks, we have a flash sale on 30% off monk supporter level membership. You get all kinds of great benefits, including a decade and a half back catalog of terrific debates and dialogues covering all the big issues of our time, a commentary e-book, a charitable tax receipt for Canadian residents, and the ability to share your monk membership with friends and family,

just a few of the incredible perks of becoming a monk supporter. You can do that right now by going to our website, triple w monk debates.com. That's MUNK. Debates with an S.com. Look for the top right navigation. Click on membership and at checkout, enter Monk 30, MUNK-30 to get your 30% off discount before it's gone. Act now. Become a monk supporter. Thank you in advance for your generous support. So Craig, when we talked prior to this debate, you mentioned your experience with kind of Gen Z employees, want to, wanting more attention. You talked about how they seem to want more acknowledgement in their day-to-day activities.

Can you elaborate on that a bit? Yeah, look, I definitely, you know, we see it's right across our workforce. We see it across our customers. Look, again, I'll blame a little bit on social media here. And, you know, you've got icon buttons on Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and all these platforms where you get instant gratification by pressing like or how many views, you know, people measure their success sometimes in followers and interaction. So it's no surprise in the workplace that if someone's not hearing how well they're going or getting pretty quick feedback,

they feel like they're being disregarded in many ways. So again, it's a changing landscape, but again, it's a balance and a blend of the different eras, right? Like I grew up in an era where you just work hard, you get ahead, and your results will do the speaking. So from a management perspective, you know, I know with me, like I know it's important to make sure people are recognized in the Bonnera, loyalty is out. You know, right now, loyalty in the workplace is out.

So people aren't worried about quitting and moving on to the next job because right now there are so many options. That will change. There will be a moment in the future where people are begging to retain their job. We've been there. I mean, the GFC was probably the greatest example of that. And anyone in the modern workforce under the age of probably 31 wouldn't know what a true economic cycle looks like. And when you've got people lining up in your management door begging to keep their job

because they need to feed the family or they need to pay the rent or pay repayments on a car, whatever it is, it's just a completely different perspective. But it's experience and it takes management. So great point. And I can tell you that's something that I've seen time and time again inside of organizations. And I see it across my friends. My friends who are doing great at their job all think they're doing an awful job. My friends who suck at their job and are probably going to get fired think they're doing an amazing job.

And so some of it, that's an individual personality level kind of issue. We can talk about how the school system and parental matter. psychological things can impact that, but I'm not qualified. I'm a call dropout. I'm not qualified to answer that. What I can say is the issue organizationally is authenticity. And this word gets brought up, but what does it actually mean in terms of an internal context? It's about having a transparent work culture where management, executive peers can be honest and real with their fellow peers or subordinates underneath them. And the issue that I see in organizations is the Gen Z low on the totem pole, the feedback they

get from management is not near enough transparent or honest. They're not providing the brutal transparent feedback. They're not going to the extent of chatting with them in an empathetic matter to get to the bottom line of, hey, this is an issue. We need to address this. It's being brushed off. And I think far too often, this label of professionalism, which is why, you know, I love going into Fortune 1000 thousand boardrooms wearing like little your hoodie just like this. And I'll almost intentionally wear backwards hats sometimes as well. Because professionalism really just becomes a facade for avoiding any sense of authenticity, transparency, and honesty. It is,

okay, I'm going to communicate professionally here. I'm going to avoid potential conflict instead of hitting it on the nose and being real with your employees. And I think organizationally, that's the cause of why Gen Z is so needy for that acknowledgement because they don't know they're standing in their role. Okay, but Jake, let me push back on that for a second because this is nothing new. For generations, younger employees have always. kind of been left to their own devices.

And Gen Z is not being treated any differently. But the critics of Gen Z will say they just need so much handholding compared to previous generations that just kind of accepted it. So what is your response to that? Is it like, did previous generations have it wrong? Or is Gen Z just a little too needy? Yeah. I don't think needy is the right word.

I think there's a need for acknowledgement across the board. Some people get their acknowledgement based on a race. Some people simply want verbal confirmation, and that's more of an individual kind of thing. And you can see that across the board at all ages, if you will. I think in Gen Z in particular, part of that need stems from the environments in education that we grew up in. And I think the problem is how that translates to the real world. You know, when you're in a class and maybe it differs because of digital integration, but you can see what your ranking is in that class at all times.

You can see what percentage you have, what you're scoring on everything. It's not a quarterly report card as it was for like up to me until second or third grade. Then it went all online. You couldn't hide your report card from mom and dad anymore. It's always there posted. And so you're at all times getting live feedback with how you're performing in certain context. And then you're thrown into the business world where there is no grade scale. There's no performance report.

And so I think it's actually more of a symptom of how we've grown up and what's happened to the education system. Because it trains for live feedback on task completion. When we all know that you complete a million tasks, that's what's expected of the job. There's no extra credit necessarily, you know, in the real world here. Craig, do you want to respond to that at all? Well, it kind of sounds like the digital economy is creating, you know, that increased need for recognition, as we're talking about. So as Jake's saying, the way it works, obviously over there in the U.S., like there's such a very quick ability to see your results and be compared. I think it's probably leading to lower resilience.

in the current sort of workforce coming through. But that's because they're just getting flooded with so much comparison and content and information. So I kind of feel like Jake's backing me up here because it means some of the old school behaviors of sometimes not actually being on all those platforms and actually separating from some of that might create a healthy outcome.

So yeah, I'm all, I'm not a technophobe. Like I'm far from that. But it seems like there's a need to have a healthy balance between, you know, the separation of, you know, what is work. And for me, work is just consumption of brain and matter versus actual relaxation downtime. Jake, I want to ask you about a term that seems to come up a lot, which is toxic workplace. So a lot of younger people talking about things going on at work that they identify as toxic. they either talk about it on social media or they go to HR and older employees kind of caught off

guard by this because they've been working under these conditions for the majority of their working years. So what is your response to that? I would much rather have my younger workforce over communicating and reporting on problems than under communicating and not reporting on problems. And the reason being, if I know about a problem or even a perceived problem, because, again, whether it's a legitimate concern or worry or a bit over the top, if that individual feels that way, we need to connect with that empathetically so we can address that problem or move on from that individual if we're not going to be the right fit for them. I would much rather know that information than not know that information and have an environment in which resentment can build up

inside of employees that are perhaps either afraid or don't want to communicate to that information, hide it inside, their productivity goes down, they secretly despise certain things in the organization. And so the fact that this generation is communicating, whether they're communicating concerns or what could be perceived as negative things in the work environment, I would much rather get that perspective and insight and feedback than I would not get it at all. Craig, you know a lot of CEOs through your work. You talk to them very often. What are you hearing from them about their experience with Gen Z? I think there's an issue around a boomer or a Gen X sort of understanding how to manage the modern generation. There's definitely this error of, and I'll say I'm called for resentment to a degree that they were trying to achieve all this flexibility.

and balance and the list of expectations goes through the roof, but we never grew up with that, and we had to work hard to climb the corporate ladder. So I think there's just this moment in time where there's this recalibration of understanding how to work with different profiles and different age brackets. I think generally it's the experienced end of the workforce who see the bigger picture.

They know what's going to come. You know, like I'm not blind to the fact, we've got an unemployment rate in Australia of 3.6%. that is incredibly low. Full employment is 5%. We will return to a 6 to 6.5% unemployment rate at some time in the near future. And that is just a different economy to manage in. So fundamentally, I'd say most people, not all, would love their workforce coming together,

driving with culture and actually being united in the purpose of the business. Okay. Jake, do you have any response to that? I know you want your employees to be in the office five days. week. Is that correct? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And this is where I may differ from some of Gen Z, although a lot of the data would indicate that it is actually Gen Z that prefer to move back to an in an office environment because they realize what they're missing out on. And so I always urge organizations and leaders to, you know, maybe we don't go to a full five-day-a-week requirement. That's what we've mandated in our Gen Z world. Granted, we are a media agency,

Our name is literally trendsetters. We have to keep on top of a lot. So I think it's necessary for our culture. Now, maybe it isn't for most companies, and we do have a global workforce and people who do work remote. But I do think you can't, there are moments that happen in office. And I think if you look at just the learning curve associated with working in office comparative to not, for younger individuals that need to be prioritizing, not wage, but

actually education, learning, information, exposure. to new things. I think it's really important for young individuals. We're going to go to closing statements. Our resolution today, be it resolved, Gen Z is unemployable. Craig, you went first in the opening statements. So, Jake, you are going to go first in closing statements. Take it away.

There's one thing I would boil everything down to. It is that all of these problems are inherently solvable. and to pretend like they aren't is to paint an incredibly bleak image of our future. Frankly, if we don't find a way to empower an employee and put to work this generation, what is to make of our world over decades ahead. And if we're all in alignment that it is possible to find a solution here, it's all then about identification of problems and working towards solutions there. And the identification of those problems, not being on one side or the other, but the kumbaya, if you will, of both coming together and understanding one other's perspective.

And if I were to highlight and boil everything down to the core root issue here, it is that leaders and managers don't understand empathetically, Gen Z's perspective on this issue. And I would argue the same. and we'll say it to all of my friends and colleagues in this space, that we also don't understand the leadership management and so on perspective, truly. And so if we can simply align on the mutual understanding, all of these problems are incredibly solvable. This is not an insurmountable problem despite what the data may show. Okay. Thank you, Jake. Craig, you're arguing in favor of a resolution today, be it resolved, Gen Z is unemployable. Let's have your closing statement. Well, as a father of two Gen Zs, I truly hope they're not unemployable, specifically for my

children's sake. My theory is they are, Gen Z is unemployable if we don't have the blend with Gen Y, X and baby boomers. So I think I, you know, I sort of find the midground here with Jake in terms of, I think you need to have all types in the workforce. And I think if you've got a workforce that is just purely Gen Z, then I think that could be a little bit troubled for future growth and development. But embracing all the generations and learning the best ways to bridge the gaps between generational leeras is going to produce an amazing business. And being able to listen and learn from each other.

And that's the power in business, right? Taking different perspective and absolutely knocking it out of the park. Thanks, guys. Really appreciate you joining us on this podcast. Thank you. Thanks so much. That wraps up today's debate. I want to thank our participants, Craig and Jake, you've given us a lot to think about. If you have any feedback or reflections on what you just heard, please send us an email at podcast at monkdebates.com. A reminder that our weekly current affairs podcast, Friday Focus, comes out every Friday. Join Janice Stein and

Rudyard Griffith as they delve into the big news stories of the week. And you can access that Friday focused podcast on our website, triplew.munk debates.com. Thank you for helping us bring back the art of public debate, one conversation at a time. I'm Ricky Gerwitz. The Monk Debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk charitable foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.