Why Gen Z is getting fired after being hired | The Excerpt

0:04 A recent headline is raising questions about the youngest

0:07 workers in the [music] labor force, Gen Z.

0:10 Some employers say they're hiring Gen Z

0:13 employees only to let them go within months,

0:15 citing [music] gaps in communication, professionalism, and workplace readiness.

0:20 But this kind of criticism isn't exactly new.

0:23 Previous generations faced similar labels when they first entered the workforce,

0:28 even as the nature of work itself was shifting.

0:31 So, what's really going on here?

0:33 Is this a Gen Z problem or workplace problem?

0:36 Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt.

0:38 [music] I'm Dana Taylor.

0:39 Here to dig into Gen Z and how they can be successful

0:42 in the labor force in the age of AI is Susie Welch,

0:46 professor at NYU's Stern School of Business.

0:49 So good to speak with you, Susie.

0:51 Thanks for having me.

0:53 The unemployment rate for recent college grads for the latest data released

0:57 by the Federal Reserve of New York at the end of 2025 is 5.7%.

1:03 That's roughly a point and a half higher than it is for other age cohorts.

1:07 Why do you think that is?

1:09 Well, it's confluence of events.

1:12 I was with a student who came to my office the other day.

1:14 She's got a degree in computer science,

1:16 she's very good at math, and she cannot find a job.

1:19 And she was in such a state of despair.

1:21 There's a I just want to put a human face to these numbers.

1:24 And she was a very talented young woman,

1:26 and I said to her, "I think you're going

1:27 to have to open your aperture about the jobs

1:29 that you're looking at." But she was looking

1:30 for what the conveyor belt would typically dump her at.

1:33 You know, there's a conveyor belt when you've got a certain degree,

1:36 and the conveyor belts went to certain jobs,

1:37 and there's just there's softness in those jobs as employers are reluctant

1:42 to hire thinking that AI might be able to do these entry-level jobs,

1:46 and so they're moving more slowly.

1:48 And then they have been a bit burned

1:50 by their AI by their Gen Z hires, as we know.

1:53 And so, I think that there's a lot of there's structural reasons,

1:57 and there's very modern reasons about what's going on.

2:00 I want to turn now to Gen Z's ability to keep jobs once they've been hired.

2:04 Recent survey by intelligent.com that made headlines says that six

2:08 in 10 employers say they're letting Gen Z hires go within months.

2:13 What does that stat actually tell us, and what's missing from it?

2:16 I think that stat tells us the truth what's going

2:19 on, and I have a I have an interesting perspective on it perhaps,

2:23 um which is that um I have interesting

2:25 research that might shed some light on it.

2:27 I teach two classes at NYU.

2:29 One is management, the the classic management class

2:32 that you would have at any business school,

2:33 and then I also teach a class called uh Becoming You,

2:35 which is a class that helps students figure

2:37 out what they should do with their life, which my timing on teaching that class

2:40 was quite prescient coming out of the pandemic.

2:43 For this class, the premise is that your purpose

2:47 in life lies at the intersection of your values,

2:49 your aptitudes, and your interests.

2:50 So, with that as the setup,

2:51 I'll say that I end up uh end up creating a tool called the Values Brain,

2:55 which um uh discerns and rank orders individuals' values from 1 to 16.

3:00 It's fully scientifically validated test, and in the past year,

3:03 about 200,000 people have taken it.

3:05 And so, we are able to cut this very large data set by generation,

3:09 and I um cut the the data to find out what Gen Z's values were.

3:14 Um and once I had that list, I did a second survey interviewing hiring managers,

3:20 um 25,000 hiring managers over the age of 40 who manage more than five people,

3:24 and we asked them, "What are the values that you're looking

3:27 for in the Gen Z people that you're hiring?" And I got that list.

3:31 And then I cross-referenced that data,

3:33 and what it showed is that only 2% of Gen Z

3:37 has the values that hiring managers want and are looking for.

3:42 So, what ends up happening in my um

3:44 estimation is a staggering number, 2% staggering.

3:47 And I think when people say, "Oh,

3:48 this has happened in previous generations, the young folks come along,

3:52 and the old folks say, "That's not the way I was." Yeah,

3:55 that's true, but not at this magnitude.

3:58 At 98% um do not have the values that hiring managers are looking for.

4:03 Only 2% do.

4:04 That's crazy um magnitude.

4:07 And so, what's happening is they're getting them

4:08 in, they're seeing if they can change them.

4:10 When they don't change them, they say,

4:11 "I've had enough of this." And out they go.

4:14 Um and I think that's what's what we're seeing.

4:15 So, just to be more specific, Gen Z's top three values,

4:19 number one is uh what we call um in the in the survey eudaimonia,

4:22 and that's self-care.

4:24 That's the Greek word for flourishing.

4:25 When I use the word self-care, usually people's heads explode,

4:27 so I just use this more neutral name eudaimonia,

4:30 but it does mean self-care, personal flourishing, recreation and leisure.

4:34 Their second value is voice, which is authentic self-expression.

4:37 They want to be themselves at all time.

4:39 And uh they want to um be very authentic in the workplace.

4:43 And their number three value is um helping others,

4:45 which is a beautiful and noble value.

4:47 For hiring managers,

4:48 the number one value that they're looking for is achievement, the desire to win.

4:53 Uh the number two value that they're looking

4:54 for is work centrism, the desire to work.

4:57 And the number three value that they're looking for is scope,

5:00 which is the desire desire for learning and activity and adventure,

5:04 which would generally I would translate in the workplace as travel.

5:07 So, um uh you that's a gigantic mismatch in values,

5:10 and that's what we're seeing play out.

5:12 And uh because the market is favoring the buyer, uh the employer right now,

5:17 and not the seller, the employee, the buyer is saying, "I'm not liking this.

5:21 I'm returning it to the store,

5:24 and I'm going to go look for a model that I like better." So,

5:26 when we look at employers, what they're saying Gen Z workers aren't doing,

5:30 aren't meeting expectations, what are they specifically pointing to?

5:36 What's the gap that Gen Z needs to or maybe this is on employers as well,

5:42 but what's the gap, the common gap that you're hearing about?

5:46 The gap is just look at the numbers again.

5:48 The gap is that employers want workers to care about winning and working.

5:54 And Gen Z employees care about self-care and individuality.

5:59 So, that's the gap and it shows up every day in kind of minor ways.

6:01 It's like the bosses are at the office early and they

6:04 stay late and they care if they win or lose a client.

6:07 And they are worried about competition and how

6:10 money is spent and Gen Z's are basically saying, "I don't like those rules.

6:14 Those were your values and I they worked out so well for your generation.

6:18 I'm not going to buy them.

6:19 My parents had those values and they got unemployed at age 54." One

6:23 thing I will say is that my area of of research involves values expression,

6:27 which is how these values play out in the real world

6:30 and I am not a specialist at all in values formation.

6:34 So, I don't I I can only report these statistics.

6:37 I can't tell you how Gen Z came to their values.

6:39 But, I teach Gen Z day in and day out and so I asked them, "Hey,

6:43 why is it that achievement Okay, the achievement is the value and work

6:47 centralism are is another value that employers want.

6:51 For Gen Z, achievement is number 12 as a value and work centralism is number 13.

6:56 All right, so they do not value these things

6:59 that the oldsters like myself and I most hiring um managers want.

7:04 And look, I want to say I love Gen Z.

7:06 I I I teach them.

7:07 I I know them personally.

7:08 I I I there's wonderful wonderful things about them.

7:12 I don't want I'm not part of the hate Gen Z um you know, dynamic out there.

7:16 Um but, there definitely is a gap between the ways they want

7:21 to act at work and the ways their managers want them to act.

7:25 Gen Z is the first generation to enter the workforce after the pandemic,

7:29 which was of course a major disruption

7:31 in their education as well as to how we work.

7:35 How much has that shaped things like communication, confidence, or expectations?

7:40 I don't know how much the pandemic had to do with it to tell you the truth.

7:43 I really don't.

7:44 I mean, the pandemic was a gigantic disruption,

7:46 but so was the bombing of London during World War II and people got back to it.

7:51 So, I do think that, you know, yeah,

7:52 not my fair area of specialty is um not values formation,

7:56 but I do think that one thing that happened during

7:59 um the pandemic was people got this in the zeitgeist like,

8:04 why would I postpone joy?

8:05 Think, why would I postpone self-care?

8:08 The world could just blow up at any moment.

8:11 And um they also got um accustomed living their lives

8:14 in front of their computer and not being in the workplace.

8:17 And so then, uh when work then said, well, hey,

8:20 we'd like you to postpone joy and pleasure and leisure

8:23 and we'd like you to come into the office,

8:25 they were like, but I like the other way.

8:27 Um and I don't want to uh I don't want to conform to these uh old uh rules.

8:33 We're hearing a lot about what Gen Z needs to do to improve.

8:37 What are employers getting wrong right now when

8:39 it comes to hiring and supporting young workers?

8:43 Let me just back up for one quick second to your question,

8:45 which is I want to say I don't recommend anybody try to change their values.

8:48 So, I don't think that Gen Z is {quote} getting it wrong.

8:52 I would never tell somebody go change your values,

8:54 go get the value of achievement.

8:55 Your values are your values.

8:57 And so, I think that what they need to do

8:59 is adjust their expectations about where they're going to work.

9:02 So, they keep their values,

9:03 which they should that they are those that they are values.

9:05 Nobody should change their values.

9:07 They have to understand there's consequences and they're not going to have

9:09 the kinds of jobs and perhaps their college degrees prepare them for.

9:13 Now, as for what employers should do,

9:15 it depends if an employer want to employ the 2% or the 98%.

9:19 So, the very good firms want to employ the 2% and as as CEOs,

9:24 I heard from a lot of CEOs after my article ran

9:27 in the Wall Street Journal about this data and they all said,

9:29 well, it's a cage match, isn't it for the 2%?

9:32 And so companies are going to fight to the tooth

9:35 and nail to get that 2% and the other companies,

9:38 I don't know if they're going to conform.

9:40 It's very hard to compete when you've

9:42 got employees who don't care about competition.

9:45 It's very hard to get work done when you have employees who don't want to work.

9:48 And so, maybe they'll conform, but I I think as long as it's a buyer's market,

9:52 which it is, uh with unemployment numbers the way they are, I don't know.

9:56 So, you mentioned AI and I want to dig into that a little

10:00 more deeply and look at how it's playing into this equation.

10:03 There is a lot of reporting that for Gen Z, including recent graduates,

10:07 entry-level jobs have been replaced by AI and so there's a fundamental

10:11 lack of opportunity to learn the soft skills that a white-collar employee needs.

10:16 Do you think that's true?

10:18 Well, AI is definitely a foot in terms of like being able

10:21 to do everything that entry-level or many things that entry-level employees did.

10:25 Like, so I mean, I had a I have

10:27 a personal IoT who created an agent that did her job.

10:30 And a data scientist literally created an agent

10:33 that who now does her entire job.

10:35 Luckily, we had other work for her, but um I have an a company that I

10:39 that I run myself and so that's what I'm referring to, not as a professor.

10:43 So, I do think this this is this is

10:45 gigantic structural problem that we're going to face into.

10:48 And it's true that when you're in these entry-level jobs,

10:51 you do learn some soft skills.

10:52 You learn collaboration, you learn communication.

10:55 And so, though but the it's also the the working remotely.

10:58 I ask my students every semester who wants to work in the office 5 days a week.

11:02 I get two people.

11:04 And then what I get down to 4 days a week, that's like five people.

11:07 Then finally, when I'm sort of like,

11:08 "Who wants to Who wants to be remote?" Um it's almost,

11:10 you know, it's it's 80% of the people.

11:13 And if you're not, you know,

11:14 talking to people and going out to lunch and somebody

11:17 comes into the office and they don't look the same.

11:19 They've got kind of a cast of their face.

11:21 You You don't see that and you don't go into their office and say,

11:24 "Hey, is everything okay?

11:24 I noticed you're not yourself." Yeah, "Hey,

11:26 I just found out that my dog's sick." And you know,

11:28 you just don't develop all of the skills that you need to advance.

11:33 And it's uh and yet uh that's a very hard case to make to Gen Z.

11:37 Like when I say Gen Z, you've got to be there,

11:39 you've got to be in the office, they just say, "Not anymore.

11:42 Uh you know, there's there's really no reason for it,

11:44 you you dinosaur, you." Uh and that's their view.

11:48 For companies that are successfully hiring and retaining Gen Z employees,

11:52 what are they doing differently?

11:54 They're hiring the 2%.

11:56 That's what they're doing.

11:57 Those companies, that's JP Morgan, that's Goldman Sachs, that's Bain.

12:01 I mean, they're they're hi- I think they're looking for the 2%

12:03 and they're hiring them because then they don't have the values disconnect.

12:07 Okay?

12:07 They just don't.

12:09 Um and so they are right off to the races.

12:12 I I I uh I think that's what's happening.

12:14 So you see the companies that are doing it,

12:16 they're they're it's all in the hiring.

12:18 They know exactly what they're looking for.

12:19 That test that I mentioned, the Values Bridge,

12:21 I can't tell you how many of these good

12:23 companies find using it as part of the hiring process.

12:25 They are looking and ascertaining.

12:27 I can't decide how people have used the test, anybody can take it, but I mean,

12:31 more and more of what we are seeing the uh you know,

12:34 these large banks and these large

12:35 companies using it during the interview process.

12:37 So they're they're hiring very carefully for values.

12:41 Susie, for Gen Z'ers who are listening to this conversation right now,

12:45 what's your biggest piece of advice to be successful in today's job market?

12:50 Ooh.

12:51 Do you mean to get hired or to be successful?

12:54 I mean, like uh Successful.

12:56 Well, I mean, the thing is,

12:59 that Gen Z has a different definition of success than we do.

13:02 So um they uh don't have a high uh they don't

13:05 have a high value on uh on on achievement or work-centrism.

13:09 So their definition of success is closer

13:10 to that work-life balance and, you know,

13:13 a life where um uh they have a lot of flexibility.

13:16 And so I think it's just choosing the company

13:19 and the career that allows you to have that.

13:21 There's going to be a trade-off in wealth accumulation.

13:24 That's but that many of them are willing to make it.

13:26 And so, I think understanding your own definition of success,

13:30 which is not your parents' definition of success,

13:32 and in some cases not the society's

13:33 or culture's sort of traditional definition of success,

13:36 is going to be important.

13:37 And understand there's trade-offs.

13:38 I think right now, Gen Z is very young.

13:40 And when we were young, we didn't understand trade-offs, either.

13:43 You know, I have a very common language students take the Values Bridge test,

13:47 they find out that their number one value is self-care,

13:50 and their number two value is affluent, wealth.

13:53 And they say, "Professor, well,

13:55 is this a problem?" And I say, "It's going to be,

13:58 um but you'll have to work that out and figure that out on your own,

14:01 and you'll have to make some decisions about how they want to live,

14:03 just like we did." Susie,

14:04 thank you so much for joining me having this conversation.

14:07 My pleasure.

14:08 Thanks for watching.

14:09 I'm Dana Taylor.

14:10 I'll see you next time.