How the Recession is Affecting Gen Y
Today’s blog is written by a Gen Y colleague. I thought it was time you heard about Gen Y straight from the horse’s mouth again!
How has this recession affected Generation Y? That’s something that often crosses my mind as I begin my journey into the workforce. Do we still have the ability to ask for what we want, and expect it? The more I think about it, I think the answer is yes.
Before this economic crisis began, Gen Y knew we could make a difference in the world, and we still feel the same way. For the most part we are too young to have made significant contributions to the current situation, but we definitely feel it is our responsibility to help solve it. We want to make a real difference no matter what we are doing. Regardless of the economy, we still want the tough assignments to prove our worth.
One way which the weak financial markets will certainly affect Gen Y is it will delay our entrepreneurial dreams. With credit markets still tight, it’s harder than ever to start a business with little to no capital. Keeping our aspirations in check for a while will force more smart young Y’s into the job market. The result of this will be increased levels of talent moving into government and non-profit careers, as those sectors will have a lot of openings over the next few years. This can only have a positive effect on the economy. Even if we do not stay in these jobs for a long period of time, our presence there will help to move those jobs in a progressive and positive direction. Or we might just find out we like them and stay.
An area where I expect there to be little change, surprisingly, is job hopping. It’s one of the things which is sort of ingrained into us. It’s not that we want to keep moving from job to job all the time; it’s just that for the most part we have no idea what it is we want to do. So instead of sitting around and trying to figure it out, our attitude is to figure it out on the fly. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for employers, though. The one thing that job hopping requires, is being good at what you’re doing. So even though we might plan on leaving our job in the near future, we will certainly not be coasting: instant results are the key to being able to job hop.
In my opinion this recession is a blessing for Gen Y. When we finally work ourselves out of this economic trouble, the result will be a much stronger and more trustworthy economy. Spending our younger days in a recession means that getting into financial markets will be relatively cheaper for us, allowing greater growth potential over our career. Additionally the experience of actually having to struggle our way to the job we want, will make all of us stronger and only push us more to do what we love. The recession has changed the game, and Gen Y is already adapting to the new rules.
Jon Yale-Loehr recently graduated from Boston University and is currently working at Book of Odds. He is the co-author of our soon to be published book, Managing the Unmanageable: 21 Management Topics for Succeeding with Gen Y. He can be contacted at jyaleloehr@gmail.com.
