Eh... some people are movers and shakers and some are not. Always been that way.

Definitely doesn't make sense to be loyal to a company any more and expect to get the gold watch in 30 years. You have to always do what's best for yourself just like the employer is doing. This generation is confused by the promises they're fed of "college degree = great life". Degrees are a dime a dozen now... unless you're a doctor or a lawyer, who cares? Are you sure the debt was worth it? Did you even think about what you would do with that bachelor's in lesbian dance studies? Even those that are successful credit the school instead of themselves, which is so odd to me. The richest guy on my street is an offshore metal fabricator... he's smart, he's his own boss and works his ass off but man does he have a sweet boat.

Hard work still pays off but you also have to have a positive attitude, be fierce, know where you want to be in the future and have realistic goals to get there.

On the other hand you can look on job boards that label things as clearly Entry Level and then says requires 2-3 years experience. I think plenty of places cant fill their jobs because they just arent offering competitive salaries.

I kinda like this new workforce. I get a lot OT for pinball stuff.

Honestly, people who work in nursing homes can't be paid enough as far as I am concerned. Thanks gdonovan for doing what you do!

For hiring new people though, if you are paying 20 bucks an hour to work at a nursing home, or they can make 25 at Target, or 20 for working remote doing support calls...its just capitalism at that point.

It might be no qualifications, but it is still a shit job that most people don’t want. I’m you want people to do shit jobs instead of better jobs, pay them more to do it, give them better and more reliable hours, give them benefits. It’s not hard, it just means sacrificing profits.

There's other ways to make money besides working for somebody.

yeah live off welfare

We all have to work for the public in some shape or form, regardless if you're working from home or a business.

How 'bout this one?

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Things started changing when Google and Apple began hiring people and having open, flexible hours as well as "fun" work environments - game rooms etc -

My company recently gutted some unused office space and put in a fully equipped exercise room and a nice break/lunch room and offers free breakfast and lunch. They have a $5000 referral offer if you recruit someone, payable after 6 months. Paid tuition and all that.

As for todays workers, my stepson (27, lives at home, has never paid room/board) was recently hired at his first "real" job. He was continuously late for work this spring when we switched to daylight savings time - he told his boss that "he keeps thinking he has more time now, and his brain doesnt work that way" so can he start later than everyone else... He was telling this to my wife who was nodding her head in agreement, and I was like "Are you fucking kidding me, you said that to your BOSS??" And I looked at my wife and said "If I was late for work you'd scream at me to get my ass up on time!"

We have a 37yr old guy that was hired a few months ago - he's late 2-3 times a week, takes at least 8 breaks a day (we've counted, it's fun), has had countless meetings w HR and anyone else who will listen that he thinks he's treated unfairly, wants to be transferred to another dept (and promoted, to boot). Guy hasnt worked anywhere more than 18 months in his life. He's the last one here and first to leave. Does the least amount of work he can, he'll literally sit at his desk doing nothing until someone assigns something to him.

My first job was Burger King in 1980, $3.35 an hour, doing everything from making burgers to cleaning grease traps.

We all have desires, but are they worth the trouble. Sounds like to him they aren’t right now. And if he can get other people to pay for it, that’s on them.

One aspect of the issue is that benefits and big purchases that were acting as carrots are now so far out of reach (ie, cars, houses) compared to current salaries, that the incentive for working towards those have imploded and left people with the "why bother?" mentality.

Additionally, the promise that a college education would land someone a good paying job has not actually turned out well for everyone in the past several years. So, some folks are being saddled with high debt from college loans, and have little chance of digging themselves out, so again the "why bother?" mentality.

Then on top of that, there's the mindset of "know your worth" where people don't want to work high stress, high effort menial jobs for menial pay. So, they go elsewhere, making it tougher for employers to fill those kinds of jobs.

With the increased costs of hiring full time employees (health insurance, taxes, benefits, etc), many employers have shifted to mostly offering part-time work, versus full time. So, that also leads to some challenges in filling positions.

There isn't really any one single reason why we're in the situation we're in. There's a whole long list of contributing factors.

It's not just about the work ethic of younger people--that's just one convenient place to put blame. It's not about people being lazy and sitting around collecting checks, that's just another convenient place to put blame for people who don't fully understand the entire scope of the problem.

There are plenty of young people who are dedicated and hard workers. Employers just have to realize that the same things that worked in years past for attracting and retaining staff don't always work for today's modern workforce. People want to feel that they are valued, and just not a nameless cog in a machine that would be replaced in a couple days if they happened to drop dead on the spot.

There just is no one simple answer to this. There are all sorts of economic, financial, cultural causes and reasons for why things are in the state they are right now. Trying to pin everything on just one thing is disingenuous.

How much do you really think welfare pays?

Enough to not need a job, and it may include housing.

But you don't have to be a traditional employee for a business is my point.

COVID unemployment checks ended a year ago and people are still blaming them for people not wanting to work?

Enough for a roof, air conditioning, a refrigerator, low quality food, an "Obama phone", and basic cable.

Essentially, a lifestyle better than a medieval King.

Anecdotal evidence does not represent a generation. There have always been people like this. Its just easier for people to say "kids these days"

So basic necessities

It's always interesting to me people that have an attitude where the options should be between work for the Corp machine or die.

There was a great piece in the WSJ today that helps explain part of the problem. I think you need a subscription - but here it is:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/income-equality-not-inequality-is-the-problem-labor-force-participation-income-taxes-transfer-payments-middle-bottom-rich-household-size-census-11661781351

It argues the motivation/satisfaction/work ethic/participation issues isn't due to the difference between the middle class and the rich, but the difference between the middle class and the poor.

Once you account for transfer payments to those to don't work, their income is very close to the net income of those who do work. So if you are working and not making significantly more than your neighbor who doesn't, it isn't very motivating.

Apart from the growing welfare state, this is also a product of our affluence and not pushing our kids as hard as previous generations since WW2.

There is a generational cultural shift happening, and I can't wait to read the studies 10-15 years from now.

One issue millennials are facing, which hasn't been mentioned in this thread, is the rising cost of child care. My friend left his very secure, great benefit job, making 100K a year because of child care issues. He figured after tax, gas, child care costs, etc he was only making 40K a year to go to his job. 40K was not enough for him to sacrifice his time and life for a job he wasn't passionate about. His wife continues to work, he left the job, takes care of the kids, and started a couple "hobby jobs" which he enjoys doing. They took a pay cut, but the family is living it up and loving life.

You live in CA so that tells us all we need to know about the people you work with.
California is being crippled, lots of those big tech companies are leaving because the workforce in that state is terrible.

Make of that what you will.

Not a surprise both because immigrants have more kids but also because they just fit the job requirements better. During my tech years (90s and 2000s) it was literally just about impossible to hire locals, they didn't have the skills required. For example one of the requirements when hiring an immigrant at the time was that you also had to list the job locally for six months to try and find local talent and it *never* panned out. This is extremely obvious in tech where you usually have to hire immigrants to get the level of school/experience/knowledge required but also in other fields like medical. Just google it, immigration was blocked a few years ago and now rural America struggles to find doctors. Our family back home is all in medical (I bucked the trend) so when immigration here was blocked they just setup their medical practices in other countries. Now rural America is reeling from the lack of doctors. Blocking immigration is both insane as it just made us fuel our competition, and sad from the damage it has done locally.

This is a nonsense trope endlessly refuted by the data. Not even going to waste my time on this.

I might argue that on the other side of that coin, people have been pushed to the point of burnout, and realized that it's not healthy.

You're absolutely right. Those are just a couple of my recent real life experiences.

I think the new generations see people getting rich for doing nothing (hello Kardashians) or for being Youtube stars/online influencers/whatever, and they want to do the same, when the odds of that are like becoming a movie star.

The population has increased as well. So are there really more lazy people or just more people in general with the same proportion of lazy people?

You are confusing legal immigration with illegal border crossings.
Our legal immigration system has been essentially broken for 40 years.

How many people under 40 are really burned out to impact the participation rate? I mean legitimately "I have worked too hard for too long I quit"

Although they exists, it is a small, small minority. Most of what folks complain about is the entitled, never had a real job, Xbox players that can't do a 9-5 entry level job to figure out how hard they can work.

Covid did impact healthcare, the woke impacted police, but the Great Resignation from burnout is already reversing itself so the older, experienced folks are returning, but it is slow.

Because its fun. No different than someone wanting to become a pro athlete or actor and make big bucks for it. The appeal to this is the entry bar is extremely low but the successful ones still have to put in work. You have to be funny, creative, or have something to keep the attention of people or else its off to the next.

Every generation has it's "get rich" thing, like in the 80s everyone was gonna get rich from wall street, the 90s from company ipo's, the 2000's from the internet, 2010's from crypto, etc...

You already know the answer. The simple and very clear answer will get moderated as political and get the responder(very possibly me right now) anywhere from a slap on the wrist(posts deleted), to a ban, of undetermined length.

To reference a quote from Indiana Jones, It's not always about the years, but the mileage.

Demands on the modern workforce can be high. Quotas, stress, management issues. Just look at the churn & burn rate at amazon. I would certainly not want to work there if I had other options.

Shipping, transportation, and delivery jobs? Food service industry jobs? Often times very demanding, low respect, poor treatment, low pay.

There is both long term and short term burnout.

Supply of jobs will eventually align again with demand.

‘Workers demanding more’ will eventually push employers out of business or more and more jobs to Best Cost Countries (BCCs). Once there are fewer jobs, the employees that demand more will be unemployed.

Maybe when they can’t find a job, they won’t be quite so demanding any more.

It’ll take a little while to get there, but it will happen. How much it shrinks the US economy will ultimately depend on how stubborn the work force is. As long as there are people in this world willing to work for less, this ultimately has to happen. We can only protect entitled US workers from desperate BCC laborers so long.

Opening boarders would accelerate this process. Funny how the workers demanding more from employers are usually the same ones that want us to open boarders.

let them eat cake!

Carrot cake.. its healthier because its got vegetables.

.

I heard this phrase from my kids they said there’s a thing called silently quitting or quit quitting.

It means not really quitting but just doing the absolute minimum possible to keep your job.

Quiet quitting is a term and a trend that emerged in mid-2022 from a viral TikTok video. The philosophy of quiet quitting is not abruptly leaving a job but doing exactly what the job requires, no more no less.[1] The main objective of this mindset is avoiding occupational burnout and paying more attention to one's mental health and personal well-being.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_quitting

I heard in China and other countries the young people are doing what’s called lying down. It means instead of getting a 9-5 job which in China might be a 9-9 job 6 days a week. Instead of that these slackers will just work one day and then take off and play video games and hang out for a few days maybe sleeping outside or couch crashing, after a few days off they’ll work another day and repeat.

When we hit 80 years old and are dependent on this new generation to take care of us... We are big time screwed. Game over man
They wont know difference between urethra and rectum. Will put foleys in our nostrils.

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The favorite local soft serve place has now closed for the year. August 28 when closing used to happen on Nov. 1.
Two full months early – they can’t find reliable help that will show-up for work, and WANT to work.
From their location about 6 miles to home, I passed 11 “Now Hiring” signs, until I stopped counting.

A nearby Wendy’s closed 3 months ago, all signs removed and the building for sale.
In the months prior, on my return home from town, I’d stop and get a Frostie frozen ice cream for the wife.
FIVE times over about 2 months, I went through the drive-through, and at the window was told “Here, just take it, no charge.”
WTF?

A month ago I was chatting with my neighbor next door, and he told me many times, he’d drive-through for a burger and fries and was told “Hey, thanks for stopping today, no charge it’s on us.”

My only assumption is they had to close - their employees were giving the food (and the revenue!) away - apparently they had NO choice but to close because the staff was sabotaging sales!

A friend of mine knows the owner of a popular pizza shop in my town.
They cut deliveries and shortened hours – can’t find good help.
He started a new (younger) employee several weeks back – the kid showed up for 2 days, and on the 3rd day never appeared.
That day he texted the owner: “I went out last night and I’m still drunk. I won’t be in today” – so he fired him.

The local Post Office has banners all over their building and trucks – Jobs Open, $20/hr to start with full Federal benefits.
My our house we see a new different route driver about every 3 weeks. Turnover.
(Amazing that when I was in school, getting ANY federal job was considered the start of a well-paying career, with full Federal benefits too!).

Here, garages, dr offices, restaurants, and etc., all have shortened their customer hours – so I ask why?
The answer is always “we can’t find help that wants to work.”

WTF are these people living on?
I myself thinks this explains the popularity of Streaming services – I think everyone is staying inside and watching TV all day.

I was in the yard a lot this weekend, and NONE of my nearby neighbors were outside – not even on a nice day with sunny blue skies.

I realize this forum is largely a bunch of better of middle aged white guys. I would recommend browsing reddit's antiwork sub if you want to see some, "interesting attitudes". Here is a link https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/top/

The real concern for the OP, is the son’s future. Barely making it today means a real struggle at 60.
I run a small company and have been doing the grind for 34 years. I’ve seen guys that started at the business making 40k and gave their left nut and now make 250-300k. Most people don’t make it long enough or want to sacrifice enough to get there. It’s called work for a reason, but financial pressures in the future due to lack of work ethics when you’re younger can be dismal.
The future problem will be that your son and daughter that didn’t do the grind now will be the parents problem in the future.
I’m a parent of a 16 year old daughter and have her working now to prepare her for financial independence down the road. I don’t want that to be my responsibility in the future.
I’m sure people will not like this statement, but work ethics have changed and people aren’t the same as they once were. I work with 60-80 year olds that I would take over a 20-30 year old all day! Sad but true.

This is as old as work.

What's going to happen when there's not enough people in the workforce paying into Social Security and Social Security dries up and there's nothing left for anybody think about that for a little bit