Gen Z is the roadkill of COVID
Tens of millions of parents all over the world are realizing how their children’s livelihoods and futures are at risk.
The daily statistics are almost too horrifying to contemplate, and yet we must contemplate them.
I wish I could just write to say that something really cool happened, and experts confirm it could happen often, and then I could say why it is so important.
That would be my preferred format. However, this is the year of the pandemic, and preferred storylines are given over to our new and often horrible reality.
The reality I wanted to write about is what I think is one of the greatest challenges we face this decade — that of the lives and future prospects of our young adults. Tens of millions of parents all over the world are realizing how their children’s livelihoods and futures are at risk.
My wife and I effectively rescued our youngest son in the third week of March. At 23, he had left Australia last October, heading to Vancouver with a 2-year working holiday visa in his pocket.
He finished college last June and continued to work his bartender job, saving for his big adventure in Canada.
It started so well. He and his girlfriend traveled to Whistler, got established in a condo in the village, found night jobs so they could hit the slopes during the day. It was late October, they loved the colors in the trees and couldn’t wait for snow to fall.
They were super happy that their plans were being realized.
The holiday season came and went and their routine was working perfectly. Skiing Mon-Fri and staying off the mountain on weekends, avoiding the busy times.
The work was steady, but the pay was minimal, so they were raiding their savings.
Then COVID rolled out of China and invaded the world. By mid-March, the warning signs were ominously pointing to borders being closed. When QANTAS announced it was ceasing international flights we waited anxiously to see if Air Canada would too.
A few days later Air Canada announced they’d cease international flights and we realized we had to get our son and his girlfriend home immediately.
Thankfully we got them on a Cathay flight to Sydney via Hong Kong. The next day Cathay announced their international flights would cease.
My wife and I drove out to Sydney International airport and was greeted with empty car parks and only 2 other cars waiting in the pickup zone. That was weird.
As we talked with them, they told us of a quite surreal experience with flights that were less than a quarter full, and Hong Kong airport is almost deserted.
In late March there was a mandatory 14-day self-isolation protocol, so the kids took my car and drove to our condo in a small mountain village, a 5-hour drive south of Sydney, to observe the isolation law.
I think about my son’s situation and the situation of millions of young adults who’ve had their lives and their careers and their hopes cruelly upended.
It’s now clear that one of the biggest casualties of COVID is, and will increasingly be, young adults aged between about 18 and 25 years, the group demographers labeled Generation Z.
Who are Gen Z?
The students of our world today who are currently at school and university are the children of Generation X, the cohort that follows Generation Y, and who are born between 1995 and 2009. They are Generation Z.
Generation Z is the largest generation ever, comprising around 20% of Australia’s population and almost 30% of the world’s population. Globally there are almost 2 billion of them.
They are the first fully global generation, shaped in the 21st century, connected through digital devices, and engaged through social media.
It wasn’t that long ago they were out on the streets all over the world campaigning — their mission to create a better future.
They are the largest demographic who work in hospitality and they will be the smallest group to be employed by corporations in the next 1 to 2 years or longer.
Almost every employment scenario for Generation Z is a massive challenge.
For young adults graduating high school or college, the current prospects of employment are abysmal and diminishing daily. In fact, they currently have close to a zero chance of being hired.
While Generation Z will be heavily impacted, we can also say that the parents of children in this age bracket will be feeling serious pressure and concern about their children’s prospects.
Competition for jobs for young adults has always been high, often intense. Sure, seasonal work has historically been available, but seasonal highs have now been replaced by consistent lows.
Our Gen Z kids are painfully aware of just how challenging it is and will be, to find paid work.
As parents, we can’t and won’t sit by and watch our children struggle indefinitely.
One of the first indications of struggle is when your Gen Z kids call to ask can they move back home. That’s already a common scenario.
My youngest son, the one who rushed back from Canada, has no job or regular income and he’s now back in his old bedroom. Thankfully, he is getting some short-term government aid.
Even with a Business Management degree and loads of bartender experience, he’s currently unemployable. He studied hard, he worked hard, and he now finds that he’s simply not wanted by any employer.
As restaurants and bars slowly reopen, his prospects for part-time work will improve, although bartending was never a career choice, merely a way to earn an income whilst studying.
He’s emblematic of the global Gen Z population and my wife and I are emblematic of the global Gen Z parents population.
It may well be that the best, perhaps only option is for him to work on creating his own company, maybe with a few Gen Z co-founders.
If he’d be prepared to listen to his Dad, I could give guidance and maybe even be part of an Advisory Board. Then again Gen Z isn’t widely known for seeking to understand their parent’s opinions.
I know Gen Z isn’t the only roadkill of COVID. The statistics are simply frightening and at the other end of the age spectrum, the Boomers are being smashed.
Asset values are depressed, dividends are scarce and work prospects for Boomers are worse than Gen Z’s.
COVID has forced many changes and it’s fast-tracking changes that might normally take 20 years or more to be realized. Nobody knows how long it will take for the COVID dust to settle — not months, possibly years, maybe decades.
In the meantime the Gen Zers standout as the demographic with the most to lose given their position at the starting gate of their working lives.
Uncertainty makes for a blurry and out-of-focus view of what might be ahead for them.
The stress they’ll experience as their inability to find work extends from months to years will lead to psychological impoverishment and will be accompanied by a massive increase in material poverty. Precisely the scenario that Gen Z parents fear the most.
As the subheading says, The statistics are almost too horrifying to contemplate, and yet confront them we must.
To be true, many of the statistics are not yet part of my reality, although they will surely be felt in the near term.
Right now the major reality I want to deal with is that of my Gen Z son and to be completely honest, I simply don’t know where that reality will take him or his parents.
Postscript: https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/younger-workers-to-feel-covid-19-pain-20200627-p556tx
About the Author:
Greg Twemlow is a Sydney-based Social Enterprise Founder | Startup Mentor | CEO | Writer | Speaker | Host of https://medium.com/consilio
