WSJ Your Money Briefing - Why Gen Z Workers Are Cozying Up to Corporate Jobs

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

Gen Zers and younger millennials, who once questioned the value of corporate life, are now embracing the structured workweek, steady paycheck, and employee benefits. Wall Street Journal reporter Ann-Marie Alcántara joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss. Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're working out at Planet Fitness, it's a judgment-free zone, so you can really step up your workout. That's why we've got treadmills. And our team members are here to help, so you can be carefree with the free weights. They're also balance balls, bikes, cables, kettlebells, and T-Rex equipment, but like, no pressure. Get started at Planet Fitness by September 13th for $1 down and then only $15 a month. Hurry, you don't want to miss this one dollar down sale that ends September 13th. Forty-nine dollar annual fee applies. See Home Club for details. Here's your money briefing for Friday, September 13th.

I'm JR Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. To people who've been in the workforce for a few decades, their office job might seem routine and boring. Not so for Gen Z and millennials. The 20 and 30-somethings that once celebrated not being cooped up in a cubicle now can't wait to show up for their nine-to-five. They want to feel like they're doing something with their work, something bigger, more meaningful, while also getting that steady paycheck every

two weeks. We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter Anne-Marie Alcantara after the break. This is an ad from BetterHelp. As kids, we were always learning and growing. But at some point as adults, we tend to lose that sense of curiosity and excitement. Therapy can help you continue that journey, because your back-to-school era can come at any age. And BetterHelp makes it easy to get started, with affordable online therapy you can do from anywhere. Rediscover possibility with BetterHelp makes it easy to get started with affordable online therapy you can do from anywhere.

Rediscover possibility with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHELP.com. Gen Z and younger millennials used to mock corporate jobs. Now many are embracing them. Wall Street Journal reporter Ann Marie Alcantara joins me. Ann Marie, why have corporate jobs had such a bad reputation among younger workers?

For many of the reasons that all of us have probably experienced at some point, low pay, unclear expectations from managers, things that are out of your control, emails at 11 p.m. at night, things that have just existed for so long emails at 11 p.m. at night, things that have just existed for so long that people who are just entering the workforce are kind of worried about.

So what changed? What all of a sudden is appealing to them about working in an office? So there's various economic conditions that have led to this. Inflation, the great resignation isn't such a thing anymore, the great stay, the big stay is here. And so people are just looking at their jobs great stay, the big stays here, and so people are just looking at their jobs, looking at the economy and thinking, you know what, PTO benefits a consistent paycheck, maybe this isn't so bad. That paycheck every two weeks isn't such a bad idea after all. Exactly. So does

this mean that the era of quiet quitting and the great resignation are over? It does seem to be that way. Many of the markets and research firms and all these people who study the workplace are pointing to an era called the big stay, the great stay, however you want to characterize it, where people are looking to stay and while they're staying in their jobs, they want more benefits or more pay raises. It wasn't that long ago we talked about lazy girl jobs, flexible, well-paying jobs that can be done from home and that end at five o'clock sharp. Where are the so-called lazy girls now?

KS So it seems that the lazy girls are here to stay, but with a renewed purpose for their job. They want to feel like they're doing something with their work, something bigger, more meaningful, while also, like we said, getting that steady paycheck every two weeks. But there's still plenty of office bashing that's going on on social media, like work talk posts on TikTok that you wrote about. Is there a mixed message there? Absolutely, and it ebbs and flows

depending on what's going on in the world. You know, there's times of the year where work talk is very, quit your job, be your own boss, become an entrepreneur, and there's times of the year where people are like, you know what, actually, I like coming to work every day, putting on a cute little outfit and putting a smile on and interacting with people. So how are people portraying their new office life in these online videos?

So for some time now, there's a popular format of people who post videos called come with me to my nine to five, and they just document their nine to five that's commuting to work drinking their coffee eating their lunch typing at work Presentations, whatever they might do in their job and it looks really mundane and silly But it's also the what a huge chunk of Americans do every day You mentioned that the younger workers who are now back in the office are actually staying in their corporate jobs. What are the numbers behind that? So according to Live Data Technologies, which is like an employment and job research provider,

Gen Z workers are staying at a company 18% longer than millennials did in the first seven years of their job. So that's quite a bit of people who are deciding to stay and embrace their corporate life. So I can imagine also that these numbers might continue to change and increase if the economy continues where it's going. We often talk about the value that managers see in younger workers.

They're trainable and for many, they start at a lower rung on the salary ladder. What are bosses doing to try to retain them and set them on a career path? So what many bosses are learning is that so many younger workers want a purpose with what their job does, even if it's a so-called lazy girl job.

They wanna feel some meaningful work that they come in every day and they do something great. So that's one thing that managers are looking into is like how can we better sell this job to people? And then of course, the benefits and not just the traditional 401k, but also mental health days or things like summer Fridays, these little things that help people appreciate their job and feel like they are being cared for by their employers. How does the return from COVID restrictions fit into people pursuing office jobs? Many of us during the pandemic,

we were stuck at home, no human interaction. If you lived alone or very little, if you lived with your spouse and family. A lot of young workers grew up and graduated into that world. And it seemed fun at first to get to work from home, but many of them are craving that in-person interaction, whether they make lifelong friends with their coworkers or whether it's just talking to someone every day.

I spoke to a man in his late 20s who lives in Dallas and he is part of the corporate world and then decided to quit, join a startup because he got tired of the remote work during the pandemic and was reassessing his life like many of us were. Two years after that, he is back in the corporate world and he's filming his nine to five for the most part in on TikTok and other social media channels. And he's just what he calls normalizing the norm and he's making it seem like, yes, this

is routine and it's fine and it's okay. And we're all having a good life still. You mentioned that he's normalizing the norm. Why is that significant for Gen Z and the younger millennials in this situation? Many of the young people I spoke to mentioned how they grew up in households or even just watching TV and movies

older generations who live to work. I'm sure we've heard that phrase before and it kind of deter them from the corporate world. And as they've joined the corporate world and as many have grown up, gotten married, bought a house, all those other expenses that come into play, many have realized, you know, it's okay, I can go to my nine to five, eight to five, whatever it is,

and have a good time and then still be able to pursue whatever I want to pursue on the downtime because I get paid so well or because I have the time and energy and benefits and support from my managers to do so. That's WSJ reporter Anne-Marie Alcantara. And that's it for your money briefing. Tomorrow we'll have our weekly markets wrap up.

What's news in markets? And then we'll be back on Sunday for the first episode of our new series, Your Money, Your Vote, where we'll dive into how the presidential candidates plan to tackle inflation and the economy. This episode was produced by Ariana Osborne. I'm your host, JR Whalen. Additional support this week from Zoe Culkin. Jessica Fenton and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music.

Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Aisha Al-Muslim was our development producer. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is The Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening.