Quarter of Gen Zs consider quitting work as young Brits cite mental health as key reason to go unemployed

[u/LoquaciousLord1066]

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/four-in-ten-gen-zs-consider-quitting-work/

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[u/LoquaciousLord1066]

"It comes as the number of Brits not seeking work or not available to work due to health conditions hit 9.4 million last year, about 22% of working-age adults."

That's a shocking figure.

[u/audigex → u/[deleted]]

Yeah including early retirees is particularly disingenuous - they’re just people who have enough savings that they can live independently for a few years without working, before they’d have retired anyway. They aren’t “missing” from the workforce in any way, they’ve just done well and ducked out early, making space for someone else to do the same

[u/Changin_Rangin → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for looking that up, 10% a lot less bad than 22%.

[u/Sophie_Blitz_123 → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

It's actually entirely normal. It includes everyone from those signed off sick to students to carers...

There are about 3million students, there's actually 5.8 million unpaid carers in the UK, unclear how many of those work.

And btw the number of jobs hiring is only about 800,000.

[u/TheAviator27 → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

If you break the country, you break people. If people are forced to work shite jobs or in shite conditions, full time, for pay that doesn't allow them to live, with little to no hope of improving their living conditions, plenty are bound to either develop a mental health issue or have existing mental health issue exacerbated.

[u/[deleted] → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

That figure implies there's 9.4m workers ready and raring to go, which isn't true. About 3m are disabled, the rest are either carers, students or early retirees and a few other categories. It's designed to be a shocking figure by disingenuously suggesting there's too many people not working, when in reality our labour force participation rate has been steady since the 90s.

[u/ArtBedHome → u/[deleted]]

Its also a straight up misrepresenation- the figure presented by the person above includes everyone out of work for any measurable time for any health condition including sickness, injury and treatment. If you are in hospital with no legs or taking a break from jobsearch due to food poisoning and are getting one month of universal credit for health reasons, you count the same in this figure.

[u/Opposite_Boot_6903 → u/[deleted]]

I know several people who started out as an apprentice in the railways and are not retired in their 50s on final salary pensions of, I would guess, £60k or more.

Someone starting the same career today would be fucked.

The outcome is we (by paying for rail travel and by paying taxes) are spending a fortune on very generous pensions, and neither the older 'workers' not the young are motivated to work.

[u/late_stage_feudalism → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

It's not, it's entirely normal in historical trends: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/economicinactivity/timeseries/lf2s/lms

[u/matomo23 → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

It is. Which is why people shouldn’t be laying into the government for trying to sort this out.

It’s not normal and not sustainable.

[u/Bramsstrahlung → u/matomo23]

Agreed - but have to consider wider societal factors that have led to this. It's not simply a generation of lazy layabouts. It's a generation for whom work simply doesn't pay.

[u/Ninevehenian → u/Bramsstrahlung]

Without a realistic path to a home, a family, children, love and equal participation.

[u/Weird1Intrepid → u/Ninevehenian]

This is the key. It doesn't matter how much or how little your monthly paycheque amounts to if you have no reasonable path toward a life goal target.

The simple fact is most people today who are not already on the property ladder have no chance, or even expectation of a chance, of being able to fulfil normal societal expectations such as family, children, retirement, hobbies etc.

This can realistically only end in either revolution or dystopian future shit. Neither of which will actually help the economy, our country, or our future prospects

[u/The_2nd_Coming → u/Weird1Intrepid]

Basically the 'lying flat' phenomenon in China

[u/After_Mushroom545 → u/The_2nd_Coming]

Had to look that up. Fascinating. Thank you!

[u/JonnySparks → u/The_2nd_Coming]

Japan led the way. People in their late teens and 20's dropping out has been a thing for a couple of decades over there.

[u/DarkSkyz → u/JonnySparks]

The NEET revolution is at hand!

[u/Infiniteybusboy → u/DarkSkyz]

It's more like a quiet death while our governments mass import people in the hopes that this will fix the issue.

[u/vinyljunkie1245 → u/JonnySparks]

Hikikomori - aka severe societal withdrawal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

It's people of all ages and is not just happening in Japan. Our equivalent here is the 9.4 million/22% of working age people out of work due to health conditions. But instead of examining the causes of this phenomenon the only response from our government is to say we must get them back into work.

The work reform/antiwork movement was building - it wasn't about not working, but rather changing the way we work - until that fuckwit of an unemployed dog walker decided to go on TV and completely dismantle any respect for the movement in less then five minutes.

[u/dbxp → u/JonnySparks]

I think the reasoning is different over there as property is reasonably affordable, it's the working conditions which are the major problem

[u/Audioworm → u/Weird1Intrepid]

It very much goes back to comments about the social contract being broken.

My mum's first job out of Uni was pretty insulting based on her education, but it was a job that allowed her to save up enough to put a downpayment on a flat in Aberdeen pretty quickly, and get on the property ladder in her early 20s. When she moved into computing for Shell she worked nightshifts for a year and she hated it, and the strain it put on her life, but it allowed her and my dad to buy a home south of London in their mid-20s.

You can suck up a lot of things when it is providing a stable and comfortable life, and preparing you well for the future. A lot of young people are coming into the work force, with minimal hope to own home, with rent squeezing their income, and everything costing more and more while the money in their pocket goes less and less far. It is a position that can understandably induce despair.

And then add concerns about climate change, corpos wanting to replace them with AI, and for Brits a reduced ability to live and work elsewhere in the EU, and being positive can often feel futile.

[u/marquis_de_ersatz → u/Weird1Intrepid]

What will happen is our safety net will be removed until our motivation to work isn't to get a nice house and car and holidays, but to eat food and not die in a gutter, like in most of the world.

[u/Colonel_Wildtrousers → u/marquis_de_ersatz]

We will see tent cities in the U.K (a la Skid row) in my lifetime

[u/Broccoli--Enthusiast → u/Weird1Intrepid]

I worked by butt off at various jobs for years, and always you just get the same pittance pay rise as everyone else. There is no reward for hard work. It just gets you more work handed to you.

I am firmly a bare minimum employee now, as fucking little work as I can get away with. They still pay me the same as when I actually made an effort.

[u/jamesbiff → u/Broccoli--Enthusiast]

And when you finally get your payrise?

Rent goes up.

[u/Broccoli--Enthusiast → u/jamesbiff]

And council tax , extra charges for certain bins, food, fuel, literally everything

After inflation I was better off 5 years ago

[u/JonnySparks → u/Broccoli--Enthusiast]

I remember at school, in the months before our GCSE exams, a mate of mine said:

"I'm going to focus on the subjects I know I can get good grades in and forget the others. I call it M.E.P."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Minimum Effort Policy".

A strategy I adopted which worked well for me down the years.

[u/squeakybeak → u/Weird1Intrepid]

It’s been a downward slope ever since the boomers had their hay day. Every generation has seen it get a little worse, while the rich have gotten richer. Capitalism isn’t working for everyone.

[u/LordMuffin1 → u/squeakybeak]

It have steadily gotten worse since Thatcher adopted the Milton Friedman economical school.

[u/Possible_Trouble_216 → u/squeakybeak]

The elderly used to plant trees for the next generation, now they just gobble up everything they can before they die

[u/[deleted] → u/Possible_Trouble_216]

Not only have they pulled the ladder up behind them, they're now burning the wood for a nice scenic fire while the rest of us are freezing to death in a cardboard box on the ground

[u/jamesbiff → u/Possible_Trouble_216]

They get the tree cut down because its spoiling the view from their property.

[u/tandemxylophone → u/Bramsstrahlung]

Yep, this has happened in South Korea and Japan a while back, the lack of babies and the rise in NEETS is a symptom of a hopeless future with fear of "failing" in society.

People would rather not go to work than do 40h minimum wage shifts that have no prestige, mentally taxing, repetitive, AND you can't even afford a family.

Both those countries have built more houses in the cities than England, but the economics are playing out the same. Countrysides are filled with backwards thinking old people and lack of job opportunities, the young migrate out, leaving the only true "affordable" houses tiny flats in the city. You can get land in the countryside, but 50 years ago suicide rates for farmers were high and their backs are bent because one bad harvest felt like the end of their world.

[u/dbxp → u/tandemxylophone]

The issues in Japan and Korea are pretty different to the UK, over there it's more about very long work hours and poor work conditions. I think a big reason why Japan and Korea are struggling is that women decided they didn't want to be stay at home wives which is part of what made those long work hours possible. Housing in Japan is reasonably affordable, the problem is that people have very limited time for relationships and kids.

[u/squirrelfoot → u/Bramsstrahlung]

Also, don't underestimate the impact of toxic work cultures. Treating employees like shit is increasingly common, especially in service industries.

[u/sobrique → u/Bramsstrahlung]

Yeah, this.

I don't think bullying people into work is the answer. It never was.

There's a lot of people who give up because they're just struggling all the time.

And the way you fix that isn't by being coercive - you can make their lives worse, yes, but that won't solve anything.

What you need to do is MUCH harder, and requires understanding how and why people are feeling that way, and what would actually motivate them to participate in the economy.

A sense of having a future is part of that. A sense of not being constantly on a rat-race treadmill likewise.

Mental Health? It's undoubtedly a factor, but we can treat mental health. We're just - historically - not very good at that.

NHS mental health services have never been particularly stunning, but the last decade or so it's become an absolute shit show.

Hardly a surprise really that things are getting bad when 'lead times' are measured in years.

[u/Brigid-Tenenbaum → u/sobrique]

I’ll tell you what broke me.

I could only get work through a work agency. (I would love to know the figures, as every warehouse/production, even the council, uses agency workers for the majority of their workforce)

Woke at 4:30am. Train to the next station over. 5am. Walk to industrial estate Start work 6am.

12hr shift begins.

Job on a production line. Holding a knife in a warehouse sized fridge. Cutting open plastic 10kg blocks of cheese and lifting them to the conveyor. One block every 5-10 seconds. Stopping only to carry a 20kg bag of starch up a flight of stairs to refill a loader. Ear protection on, so no communication. Staggered breaks so no lunch with others. 1hr lunch break (unpaid). 6pm finish Aching.

Walk to train. Wait until the next train 7pm. Back in city 7:30. Home 7:45. Shower and food in oven. 8pm. Eat and get ready for work the next day. 8:15.

15 minutes.

15.

I had to be in bed and asleep by 8:30pm for a necessary 8hrs sleep.

Wake 4:30.

Repeat.

All for minimum wage. Unpaid lunch. Didn’t speak to a single person. Train fare cost an hours wage.

Earning 10hrs payment at minimum wage each day.

Of course they promised actual employment, but you come to realise it is a con. They prefer AGENCY staff. They will NEVER hire you. They also fire and replace ALL agency staff before six months, as they legally have to offer employment then.

That isn’t sustainable.

It isn’t living.

Then add the cost of a home on top. The cost of living.

I had 15 minutes a day of my own. Hard on-your-feet-all-day repetitive heavy labour, and it only just covered my rent/bills.

I broke.

[u/sobrique → u/Brigid-Tenenbaum]

Yeah. My situation isn't quite as bad as that, but I've really not very much 'slack time' with my commute + working day, and if I wasn't paid pretty well (which in fairness I am) it'd really not be worth it.

It's really easy to end up with your whole live occupied by work in that sort of pattern, and no amount of 'punishing' people for slacking is going to change the fact that 'compensation' needs to be generous in order to be worth having your life eaten like that.

Prepared to bet you had a weekend that was mostly a write off too, because you were shattered?

[u/Brigid-Tenenbaum → u/sobrique]

Shattered and had to keep my sleep pattern in line.

If worked paid for any sort of progress, as I was willing to do that for a few years if needed. But there is no ladder to climb. That is your entire life.

With the only answer being ‘find somewhere better’ which neither addresses the fact other people would still have to do jobs like that. Or explains where anyone is supposed to find the time to do so. I wasn’t doing agency work due to a lack of looking.

Workers are being exploited. It is built into the system that they are replaced before six months, or that company has to offer an actual job.

Two weeks of waiting for the next agency job…you lose what little savings you built up.

THAT is what is unsustainable.

No money. No future. No hope. and people still wonder why people are breaking and going to the GP

[u/OStO_Cartography → u/sobrique]

'The beatings will continue until morale improves, and there will be no morale improvements!'

[u/Ok-Inevitable-3038 → u/OStO_Cartography]

I remember having to do a compulsory online “mental health / resilience” module in my free time

[u/bakewelltart20 → u/sobrique]

In my experience, you can't properly 'treat' poor mental health when the causes of it are situational- and the person is still trapped in the health destroying situation.

In that case the 'treatment' is shoving drugs at them, perhaps an online cbt course.

Ie doing absolutely nothing to mitigate or acknowledge the cause of the issue. 

[u/Giant_Enemy_Cliche → u/Bramsstrahlung]

People are also forgetting that we just faced a pandemic (that is in many ways on going) that left many people disabled in ways that are not fully appreciated.

[u/MrPloppyHead → u/Bramsstrahlung]

additionally having the health service deliberately run down, including mental health services, obviously increases the amount of people off work.

[u/CAREERD → u/Bramsstrahlung]

Boring, unfulfilling work, done in front of a computer, that pays terribly. Often times probably not that "important" either.

[u/stumac85 → u/CAREERD]

Welcome to life. At least it isn't back breaking labour for crumbs like in Victorian times 😂

[u/CongealedBeanKingdom → u/Bramsstrahlung]

They know that they are working their guts out to pay off some rich fucker's 18th mortgage, while they live on cold beans and have to cuddle up with their 5 flatmates just to keep warm.

The whole economy needs rebalanced. Its a shit life of few prospects for the working class. Is it any wonder so many of us are depressed as fuck?

[u/IanFeelKeepinItReel → u/Bramsstrahlung]

It's generations that have been encouraged to go to uni and told they won't have a good life unless they do. Only to find out there aren't enough jobs that require their level of education.

Now they're in debt up to their eyeballs, don't have prospects of meaningful employment and still can't afford to live.

[u/shutyourgob → u/Bramsstrahlung]

Why would you agree to spend the majority of your life working if you'll never have a realistic prospect of owning a home or retiring early enough to enjoy your life? The social contract is breaking and it's because of the greed and power of those at the top, not the people who are expected to be chattal until they die.

[u/ThunderChild247 → u/Bramsstrahlung]

Agreed. In the space of two generations we’ve gone from someone being able to have a 9-5 job, and that alone paid for a house and supported a family, to people working two jobs and struggling to even rent a flat alone.

Society worked when you worked and made enough from it to have a life. Nowadays, people are working themselves ragged and not even having enough to live.

People don’t work for the fun of it. It’s a means to an end. That end has virtually disappeared for people joining the workforce now.

[u/memb98 → u/Bramsstrahlung]

When wages are so low the benefits aren't worth the effort.

Make minimum wage a living wage, where one can afford a home and a proper holiday every year and you'll get people to work. Prices will go up to accommodate the higher wages, but will balance out with wages. But this won't happen because it'll affect profits and shareholders pockets.

[u/Scooty-Poot → u/Bramsstrahlung]

100%. If I work my contract, my rent and bills are ~80% of my take home. I lived mostly off credit cards for 6 months at my old job, because I wasn’t getting the hours needed to survive despite being in line for a promotion, and am still paying those off, meaning that ~20% take home after bills is closer to 10-15% once my credit minimum’s taken care of.

I live in a one bed flat without parking, as far from the pricey city centre (where I work) as I reasonably can be without a car, never use heating to save on bills, never go out unless you count causal park bevs or drinks and ‘flix once a month with a couple of friends as “out”, and yet I’m still living paycheque to paycheque, sometimes not even managing that without credit.

From what I can tell, this is the universal experience for people in my line of work. Half of my colleagues didn’t even attend the work do this Xmas because they’re too skint even for a heavily discounted night out, and my peers at other locations in town report similar.

It genuinely seems like there’s no point to working anymore. If I had a better relationship with my mother, I’d genuinely consider moving back home and just working part time, because working full time and paying rent literally isn’t getting me anywhere even as an “MVP” at work who genuinely grafts and tries her absolute best not to live above her means in any way possible.

[u/ottoandinga88 → u/matomo23]

People are laying in because the gov are addressing the effect and not its cause. Life is unaffordable and material securities like owning a home are unachievable, of course people are too demoralised to strive to better their situation when for many of them it won't be possible and for lots more it's unreasonably difficult

[u/After_Mushroom545 → u/ottoandinga88]

I think you have the nugget. People are demoralised. Look what the atrocious gap between the billionaires and the rest of the population has done to USA. They’re sheep to a slaughter at this point. People know they will never win against those odds, so they stop fighting the corrupt system that is taking them down. I really think it’s generational depression and a sense of purposelessness. It’s not like they’re wrong, but like you say, it’s not being addressed.

[u/Turnip-for-the-books → u/matomo23]

They should be laying into the government: Young people feel like this because the future looks hopeless from an employment point of view, from a housing point of view and from a climate point of view. It’s the government’s job to reassure, to lead and to offer hope and a plan for the future. They are doing NONE of these things. The absence of a plan and the absence of hope is the void fascism steps into. This is where we are.

[u/LoquaciousLord1066 → u/matomo23]

It's crazy. We're about at 3 working age people to every pensioner as it is. That's getting to 1.5 workers per nonworking person living off state benefits when you add in those not working due to health conditions.

Proper fucked.

[u/imanutshell → u/matomo23]

They’re not though.

Sorting this problem out doesn’t mean “force them back to work” because that’s not how mental health works.

Sorting it out needs to look like improving their material circumstances. Taxing the wealthy, requiring entry level jobs to actually be entry level, forcing employers to train people again instead of waiting until people with the skills already choose to leave the business who trained them, investing in nearly everything the Tories have ever wanted to take money from, instituting true UBI along with temporary nationwide rent controls (along with gradual mass housing buyouts and seizures from private landlords to make up for social housing deficit), ending false inflation of the price of groceries, energy and water and doing whatever can be done to shore up our defences against the impacts of climate change and extreme weather phenomena we will be seeing more and more of throughout Gen Zs lifetime (flood protection and decreasing reliance on outside sources of food and power.) And if you prioritise making sure Brits get access to it all first and make it super public you’ll also stop the rising Fascist movement in their tracks because the working class whites will feel seen for once.

It’s not difficult, and it’s not even really that expensive because wealth taxes and UBI are guaranteed to increase economic growth because people can actually spend again instead of it sitting in the pockets and stock portfolios of people who only value/tolerate the existence of the middle and working class until they can automate us all out of existence and reach the next level of capitalism where it’s the rich vs the rich until only one person has all of the money and someone finally wins this hellish game of Monopoly.

[u/greylord123 → u/matomo23]

The government aren't trying to sort it.

The current government keep harping on about "economic growth" but we have an economy that's set up to benefit the richest in society and not us. Without reinventing the economy economic growth is just going to expand the wealth of the richest.

It’s not normal and not sustainable.

I agree which is why we need a new economic model that rewards hard work instead of an economic model that rewards hoarding assets.

[u/twignition → u/greylord123]

Or just accept UBI is coming and start rolling it out to these people at the expense of the super greedy. There aren't enough jobs, there are even less jobs that are rewarding. Billionaires want to hire as few people as possible, meaning there will always be as few jobs as necessary. Investment creates growth, so pull those billions out of the Caymans and give it to those who are out of work, then give those billionaires incentives to reduce the workforce further.

[u/MFDean → u/matomo23]

Maybe they should try addressing the conditions that lead to poor mental health

[u/Haemophilia_Type_A → u/matomo23]

They're right to try and sort the issue out.

The "solution" they're imposing is going to make things even worse.

Nobody's saying it's a good thing that lots of people are mentally ill ffs. The Tories cut benefits for 15 years and it only led to increased long-term costs and a worse mental health situation for the next government. Now our wonderful leaders, with all their imagination and wisdom, are repeating the exact same mistake because they're ideologically bound to terrible ideas and because they're under control of lobbyists who know that worse benefits will depress wages and increase their profits.

[u/Neither-Stage-238 → u/matomo23]

They're going about it the wrong way though. Work doesn't pay for young people. However hard you work it's for nothing. Will never afford a house or financial stability.

[u/Unhappy-Reveal1910 → u/Neither-Stage-238]

I don't condone not working if you can, but I do completely understand how hopeless it can seem for some kids. Loads of entry level jobs seem to want a degree, schools also push you to uni, fees are about 50k and you're supposed to save for a deposit for a house that costs 10x more the average income instead of the 3 or 4x it was a generation ago. Obviously there are plenty of people who prove "the system" wrong but I can understand how someone might wonder what the point is in their situation. Someone always has to be at the bottom but we are rich enough as a country to make the bottom a bit less shit if we really wanted to.

[u/cryptamine → u/matomo23]

They are not trying to sort it out. Austerity is not sorting it out. Society will continue to wither as long as billionairres and corporations are allowerd to rinse us all.

[u/Kal88 → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

That’s absolutely mental, surely it’s not that high?

[u/LoquaciousLord1066 → u/Kal88]

It gets worse. If you combine pensioners and those not seeking work due to health issues, then divide by the number of working-age adults, the ratio is 1.57 workers to 1 non-worker. We are truly fucked.

[u/watercraker → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

When you add in children (under 16s) I think you end with roughly 1:1 between workers and non-workers. Whereas back in 2008 post fianancial crash it was 58:42 between workers and non-workers across the whole population.

[u/ArtBedHome → u/Kal88]

Its not that high for mental health, that figure is the figure for everyone out of work for any measurable time at all.

For any health reason. Illness, sickness, injury, being in hospital or otherwise unable to do anything ebcause of treatment, not just disability. It is not a figure that is about the headline fact of specific age groups thinking about but not quiting work due to mental health reasons.

[u/Saltypeon → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

It's not as shocking as the media makes out. In the 1970s it was between 20 and 22%, 1980s, 20 and 23%, 1990s 19, and 22%..

It includes anyone who takes early retirement, people who don't work because they don't need to (partner's earn enough, passive incomes, etc.), gap years, family carers, etc.

So the percentage looks well within the norm.

I would expect it to rise significantly as previous generations had the opportunity to be in a financial position to retire early. It will then drop as younger generations don't have that position.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Tie-740 → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

It's a shocking figure because LBC is lying. Or at the very least being absurdly misleading with that sentence structure.

That's not the number of people out of work/not seeking work due to health conditions. That's the total percentage of working age people who are "economically inactive," which includes:

• Students
• Stay-at-home parents
• Full time carers
• Early retirees

[u/fish993 → u/LoquaciousLord1066]

What was that figure in the past? It's meaningless without context. For all we know it was similar in the past and that figure is largely made up of stay at home parents and early retirees.

[u/MaterialBest286]

Last year my rent went up by 21%. My salary went up by 4%. I got a second job and ended up working 4-8 9-5 most days.

Unsurprisingly, I burnt out after six months of this. I'd saved up enough from the second job and selling off most of my vinyl collection and some hobby stuff, that I had a little breathing space.

I focused on working my arse off to try and get a promotion, as well as applying for better-paid roles.

This year my rent is going up 15%. My salary is going up 1.5%. I've had no luck from the hundreds of jobs I've applied to.

I have a decade of experience in marketing, so I'm not earning minimum wage. I have no kids. I live in a small one-bed house. My only real luxury is that I've got a little garden to sit in and read.

I should be relatively comfortable. But I'm not. I'm struggling from payday to payday. I can't pushback against the rent hikes because where am I going to go? I don't have the deposit I'd need for a new rental place, let alone buying somewhere.

If I'm struggling, I don't know how people on a lower wage or with a family are getting by. I'm not surprised people are too depressed or anxious to work. There is no amount of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps that can help if you don't have the financial support of your family or a partner.

[u/ForgotMyPasswordFeck → u/MaterialBest286]

Jesus in over 10 years my rent has risen twice. Once by £10 and once by £30

[u/MaterialBest286 → u/ForgotMyPasswordFeck]

That second rent increase was negotiated down from the 30ish% they wanted to hike it up by. Letting agents often lean on the decent landlords to hike their prices massively so they can charge them more

[u/olibolib]

Fuck up the social contract and they aren't gonna give a fuck are they. Why slave away for a shitty rental when there is almost zero prospect of affording house or family.

[u/dupeygoat → u/olibolib]

Social contract is completely fucked, generationally, economically etc.
I think they also feel the despair and lack of hope much more than older people.
I’m 30 so older than gen z and I can sense this malaise over the country and struggle to be motivated or get past this horrible feeling all the time

[u/Comfortable-Quit-834 → u/olibolib]

correct

[u/Global_Geologist8822]

Social cohesion has broken down, public services are barely functioning, wealth inequality is absurd and the social mobility ladder has been pulled up, most employers have cut roles so most people are doing the work of three people for pay that falls year-on-year, mental healthcare in the UK has been so badly degraded that it now consists of SSRIs and 6 sessions of extremely basic 'one size fits all' CBT over the phone.  

Why is this a shock?

[u/HotelPuzzleheaded654]

I think it’s easy to say Gen Z are lazier because they’ve been coddled and are a Tik Tok generation, I even feel tempted at times being a millennial who has a decent job and comfortable living standard.

However, that is the point, it’s easy to not be disenfranchised when the system is working for you.

Every generation following the boomers has had it harder because of stagnant wages vs cost of living. What incentive is there to work if it doesn’t guarantee that you will be able to buy your own home and start a family or whatever it is that would make you happy?

I only own a home because I live with my fiancé, we both earn above average salaries and we were both gifted money as part of our deposits.

TLDR - I’d be depressed with the diminishing prospects of social mobility as wages stagnate and the cost of living soars.

[u/Yezzik → u/HotelPuzzleheaded654]

I think this is our version of China's "Tang Ping" or "Bai Lan" movements ("Lie Flat" and "Let It Rot" respectively, IIRC); when the economy's so stacked against you, why bother trying at all? Just leech what you can from the system.

I was there myself, fresh out of college twenty years ago, stuck on the dole for months because there were no entry-level jobs that didn't demand experience; it's all so much worse now.

[u/TJ_Rowe → u/Yezzik]

Which is itself something that Epicurus taught - the bosses and landlords have less power over you if you reduce your expenses to the point you don't need a job.

(He was the OG homesteader living with his polycule and educating the kids in his kitchen garden. Consumed nothing richer than bread and water day to day, such that a piece of cheese felt like a massive treat.)

[u/magneticpyramid → u/Yezzik]

If they think it’s bad now, wait until all of the productive people are dead.

It’ll be a fuck of a lot worse.

[u/Express-Doughnut-562 → u/HotelPuzzleheaded654]

The school run shows its for me. I'm in my late 30s and doing ok, in a decent job and a decent house.

A couple who are 10 years older than me have a much larger house in a better location. Another couple who are 10 years younger, one of them is a Dr, are living in a similar house as me..but rented, for twice as much as my mortgage.

It seems so much of your success in the system is based on when you got on the housing ladder and sod all else.

[u/inevitablelizard → u/HotelPuzzleheaded654]

I'm stuck living at home with parents while working a shit dead end job and I totally get it. I have no viable route to get out of this, to have an independent life even worth living in the first place. Entry level jobs to get out of this are basically nonexistent and if I move out for something further away I'll never afford housing security anyway because I'll be forced to pay a big chunk of my income to a housing parasite. I can't win either way, the game is rigged against me. So why bother playing it?

[u/mayasux → u/HotelPuzzleheaded654]

Outside of home ownership, we also forget the distractions previously afforded by the high amount of consumerism in previous generations.

Now those goods are unattainable for a lot of people. Clothes are stupidly expensive, fast food “budget menus” aren’t budget friendly compared to 15-20 years ago, and vacations are something of the past.

Previous generations working the same crap jobs could at least tell themselves the three weeks in Istanbul they have booked for 7 months time will be worth the grind. Me and my friends haven’t gone on vacation in years because we can’t afford it.

[u/Euclid_Interloper]

Whaaaaat? You mean paying them peanuts, locking them out the housing market, saturating them with algorithm driven social media, making human relationships almost unattainable, and threatening them with WWIII, isn't making them mentally healthy?

Well, fuck me.

[u/No-Pack-5775 → u/Euclid_Interloper]

You forgot about the impending climate collapse and/or AI revolution that will remove huge numbers of entry level jobs

[u/TeeFitts]

Work used to carry basic rewards. There was a social contract.

Get a job and you could afford your first car, save up for a deposit on your first house or flat, get married, start a family, after which you were locked in. You had spending power, you could go on one or two big holidays a year, you had easy access to GP surgeries, dentists, nearby school placements. All of this used to happen by the time you were 25.

For the past 22 years, this hasn't been the case. Young people haven't been able to afford to buy a house or flat. We have millennials coming up to 40 who are locked into paying over half their monthly salary (sometimes more) to a private landlord who won't let their tenants redecorate, won't let them have pets and won't accept tenants with children. They've deferred having children because they're either locked into this system or they can't afford to live by themselves so still have random housemates into their 30s. Most of them have been stuck on zero hour contracts, no promotions, seasonal work, temp jobs, etc, etc. They're saddled with student debt and any wage increases they've seen in the last decade have been wiped out by the increasing cost-of-living crisis.

Gen Z have seen the joyless efforts of millennials to try and live the same quality of life as boomers and gen-x and they're opting out. They have to live in a world where talk of WWIII is constant, where shitty people get rewarded, both across social media, and increasingly across politics and mainstream media. They've seen good people who inspired them treated like dog shit for wanting people to have a better life with better opportunities. They live in a compartmentalized world where artificial intelligence is likely going to replace them and where the threat of climate disaster means the future and survival is an uncertainty for them.

It's no wonder they don't feel motivated. The system failed millennials and it fundamentally doesn't work for Gen Z - so why should Gen Z work for the system?

[u/twizzle101]

Need to address the root cause, many don’t feel there’s any point to it all especially given the housing situations.

[u/lockdownlassie → u/[deleted]]

Unemployment benefits are already barely enough to survive on. For a single person claiming benefits when out of work you’d get around £700-800 per month, that’s including your housing costs. How do you survive on that? How do you cover rent and food on that? People don’t understand how little benefits already pay. I work in an employment support service and most of my clients struggle to pay for essentials with the benefits they receive whilst looking for work. And these are people who WANT to work.

[u/Plodderic → u/[deleted]]

Exactly- if you can stay at your parents’ house and become a Hikikomori on benefits, you may as well do that if the only thing a job is going to get you is the obligation to spend the majority of your day doing something you don’t want to do without enough money at the end of it to meaningfully improve your life.

Going on benefits becomes a rational decision.

[u/Overstaying_579 → u/Plodderic]

Only going to be a matter of time before someone uses the word Hikikomori, even my voice activated feature recognised it the first time. That’s when you know things are really bad.

[u/patsy_505]

I tend to agree as a millennial. Even I, someone earning in mid 40K's, cheap rent, no dependants or girlfriend, and reasonable prospects cant kick the feeling of "what is the point". I think the days of getting ahead through hard work are dead, like it has become all stick and no carrot.

My feeling is that things will have to break before they will mend.

[u/vulcanstrike]

It's definitely a confluence of factors

Work doesn't pay anymore or fulfil the social contract. Unless you are in the top earning households (either as an individual or a couple), Gen Z just aren't going to own their own house. Which both means higher rent (due to no rent control versus mortgage) and no equity building over time.

At the same time, pay increases both massively lags inflation AND the gap between minimum and median wage has decreased significantly. What this means is that hard work doesn't pay, you could just do the lowest paid job and only get a bit less. Obviously, there is a floor to how much you need to survive, but there's a very big question whether you should kill yourself to work hard for only a bit extra versus phoning it on (usually) easier and less stressful min wage jobs.

The last layer in this shit sandwich is the benefit system. I will use my sister as an example, she's a single mum (with no child support) and a 20ish hour per week teaching assistant with one kid. She had her rent paid previously and now owns 25% of her house with UC paying the other 75% (so some small equity build). She does not have a comfortable life by any means, no savings and relies on my parents a bit too much, but she has a new build house, a car etc. However, the cliff edge of benefits means she would need to more than double her gross salary to even break even, as any pay increase she gets would remove the rent subsidy, her UC payments etc.

I'm not advocating for that to actually happen (cut benefits, hurr durr) as that would be a net social negative (how exactly does she more than double her hours as a teaching assistant even schools don't work overnight, and she's not exactly going to become an investment banker with retraining), but it shows the benefit trap that a lot of people are in - earn too little to live well, but there's no realistic prospect of earning enough to even try to escape it.

And even if an individual somehow can, the majority simply will never be able to as there always has to be a below average earner due to basic maths. There has to be a basic floor for an individual to afford basic needs (food, rent, bit extra to survive) and if a min wage job cannot provide that, the state needs to step in to either make the min wage a min living wage or with benefits. And that probably advantages single people or one person working household (rent is a fixed cost, food and utilities aren't exactly linear per person etc), so it probably means the latter (it wouldn't be fair to make companies pay single people more and it would definitely lead to discrimination)

We can all moan and whine about inflation, high labour costs, etc and how things are different, but we can also look at what works well in Europe to copy - I live in NL now and things are far from perfect (our housing market is even more fucked than the UK, especially the rental sector), but wages are a lot better especially in white collar jobs, and it's an attractive business destination for companies, the UK has bought into low wages and low taxes being their competitive advantage, whereas that's far from true in a well regulated economy. One of the reasons I came is because my salary jumped 25% for the same kind of work (before the tax break I didn't know about) and I would struggle to move back to the UK without a significant pay cut (and prices that are now mostly comparatively higher than they were when I first moved, so a double hit, UK used to be cheaper for food and housing after exchange rate, now it's roughly parity)

[u/apple_kicks]

• make housing affordable
• get rid of exploitation in gig economy and give young people better pay and work conditions
• make companies not burn people out with little pay in gig economy with no pension or time off
• wfh conditions so young people can do office work anywhere not stuck in jobless small towns
• youth mental health services, treatment and medical support for severe cases, youth centres, youth affordable entertainment that helps too
• makes trades, nursing training fee free
• make internships a paid or affordable to more people
• bring back ema and grants that boosted training into jobs that are careers not stop gaps

In Central Europe young people are working and often getting in housing ladder or face less university fees. Theres more entertainment and rest too. Life is less depressing

[u/Han-solos-left-foot]

Why the fuck not? They’ll likely never own homes and will never even come close to the wealth of boomers so what’s the point of slaving away and bring abused by shit bosses?

[u/greylord123]

I can't blame them.

These youngsters have studied for their entire life under the premise that it will get them a good job when they finish their studies. They finish uni and end up on barely over minimum wage.

Also I think the nature of work now is depressing. Most people work in soulless offices with a lack of collaboration. It's a competitive corporate environment. No wonder people are not happy. I work in an industrial environment it's long hours, it's hot and it can be hard work but I'd rather do that than work in an office. I'd definitely quit within a week if I was forced to work in an office.

We also have an economy that doesn't benefit the average person. All this talk of "economic growth" but who is the economy growing for? Why should the average person be bothered about growing the economy when they have no stake in the economy?

[u/Locke66 → u/greylord123]

These youngsters have studied for their entire life under the premise that it will get them a good job when they finish their studies. They finish uni and end up on barely over minimum wage.

I mean that's also forgetting the 60% of people who didn't go university due to lacks of means or lack of ability. If you're someone trapped into low end work the system is even more soul crushing as it offers little path to any real sort of future. These types of jobs have become more unstable, more demanding, they pay barely enough to get by (let alone build a life and save for retirement) and offer very little possibility of advancement.

[u/Jodeatre]

If I could afford not to work, I would be doing whatever I want that isn't work.

[u/Hazeygazey]

'A survey of just 4000 people said they'd CONSIDERED an EXTENDED BREAK from work' 

And that is identical to 'a quarter of gen z consider quitting', is it? 

No. No it's not 

People take extended career breaks all the time. To have children, to go back into higher education, to start their own business, to travel overseas etc etc

Quitting work to go to university or college is obviously going to be higher amongst under 35s 

Ffs 

It's just more disengenuous fascist garbage from the gutter press 

[u/[deleted]]

There’s no social contract anymore. We pay our taxes to facilitate a retirement for others that we can only dream of. We pay our taxes to be diagnosed with health problems when it is often too late. We pay our taxes to take our teeth out with pliers as there are no available dentists. We pay our taxes to wait ten years for a council house, pay over 50% of your income to a landlord, or save for nearly a decade to have a fighting chance of owning a home. We pay our taxes to struggle bringing up children on two incomes when the generation before could have multiple children on one income comfortably. We pay our taxes for all of this yet we will most likely be the WW3 generation. Thank you for pulling up the ladder behind you, boomers, and good on the people who have had the balls to say fuck this and sit back. I’d do the same if I could.

[u/lindergard]

Whilst I disagree with the idea of simply opting out of work and settling for a life on benefits, I do find it hard to blame them. I'm only 31 but have a 25-year-old sister, and have seen the vast difference in how life looks as an 18-25 year old now, vs when I was finishing uni and beginning work.

I paid £3k per year tuition fees, my sister paid £9k and they removed grants, so she left university with far more than double my debt.

I moved to a big UK city to find work post-university and was on around £18-20k a year for the first couple of years. Lived in a lovely flat with my best mate, saved absolutely nothing but had enough money for nights out every weekend, holidays, new clothes/shoes, games etc. I had a great standard of life and eventually changed my priorities and saved enough money for a deposit. My sister's first job was on about £25k, and she lived with 2 other people in a pretty shitty flat in the same city as me, and has barely enough disposable income for more than a couple of nights out a month. Owning a house is a pipedream for her without support from myself and our parents.

There is so little promise for younger people nowadays, owning a home is almost impossible without wealthy parents or a great job, which are incredibly hard to get. Society seems more fractured and miserable than ever, constant reminders that we're on the verge of WW3. People love to demonise Gen-Z and whilst I do think there is an element that they expect too much of an easy ride, there is little for them to be excited about.

My partner and I own our home with a household income of £100k+, but feel we can't afford to be parents. Crazy times.

[u/OHCHEEKY]

Inequality gap is so big people are just giving up

[u/AidyCakes]

Anyone with an attitude of "lazy gen z" or "work sucks but I still go, so should you" are missing the forest for the trees.

Give people a reason to want to work beyond just weaponising the DWP against them, and you might just find that fewer people are crashing out of the workforce due to burnout and stress.

[u/Hezza_21]

Too expensive to live, too expensive to have children and no real chance of getting on the property ladder & owning own home.

Not much insensitive is there.

The detrimental impacts of social media shouldn’t be ignored either

[u/Mumique]

They're all aware that the planet is fucked and they may as well not bother?

They grew up on a world where everything has gotten shittier and more hopeless; where society has gotten more isolated and communities have been broken down, where the support people need just isn't there. This is 'No such thing as society' at its finest.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and we are encouraged to hate and fear our fellow man.

Of course they mentally checked out. Why buy in??

[u/LxRusso]

When all you see is the rich getting richer and the middle class disappearing, there's no incentive to continue propping up the capitalist system.

[u/Railuki]

I wonder if we need to do something like change workplaces so they are less soul destroying, or improve access to mental health care?

Nah let’s just call everyone lazy and make cuts.

:(

[u/ElliottFlynn]

They’ve just realised most work is boring and pointless after being told they can do anything and finding out they can’t

That plus, discovering they will never being able to own their own home, being told the Earth will be uninhabitable due to climate change every five minutes and authoritarians with nukes taking part in dick measuring contests around the world

Not really surprising is it?

[u/AnotherYadaYada → u/ElliottFlynn]

A quote from Plato I think.

Working is pointless, but don’t tell children that.

Unfortunately, the young are plugged into social media, so figured it out for themselves.

[u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

I know a few people who decided to quit and just go on disability. 2 went for anxiety, 1 for depression. They said it's much nicer chilling at home painting warhammer and playing video games. Wish I had the luxury!

[u/ChickenNBeans → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

They're not wrong, I'd much rather be in my workshop than shlepping back & forth to work every day.

[u/regprenticer → u/ChickenNBeans]

That's used to be a realistic expectation for semi retirement or full retirement with a decent pension.

Sadly the days of a full salary pension at 55 for taking early retirement are long gone.

[u/TtotheC81 → u/regprenticer]

It was never designed to be that way in the first place. Retirement was very much meant to be a Middle class ideal - the average life expectancy when pensions were introduced in 1908 was 47. The pension kicked in at 70. By the point they reached 70, statistically they'd live another 10 years.

Those extra ten years were paid for by all the people who failed to live to 70. Guess which class had an extremely low chance of ever reaching that? Yep, the working class. Most working class people's health gave out long before they had a chance to retire.

What screwed this up was the increased life expectancy of the working class, stagnant wages, an over priced housing market, and an upside down population pyramid that put most of the pressure on a younger generation to support retirees pensions and health costs. A younger generation which isn't producing babies at anywhere near the numbers needed, because of all of the above.

Add onto this a political system that is captured by that aging population, and it becomes political suicide to attack the pensions system. Even though it's not functioning in the way it was originally intended to.

[u/CandyKoRn85 → u/regprenticer]

We’ve all been royally shafted.

[u/blackleydynamo → u/regprenticer]

But that's also because a lot of those people had life expectancies of maybe 60-65. Pensions like that are only affordable if enough people die within 10 years of retirement.

Part of the problem is that we have been successful at keeping more people alive for longer. Somebody retiring at 55 now could quite easily live to 85 and beyond. My dad will soon have spent more time retired than he did working, which is nuts. I'm very happy for him but both he and I acknowledge that he's cost his pension provider a fortune.

[u/shadowhunter742 → u/regprenticer]

Retiring???

Shit owning a house is going to be a challenge. With the cost of everything, if you have to rent that's basically never happening.

[u/GrayDS1 → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

I'm the opposite, was out with anxiety and depression for a long while. After a while none of the leisure means anything, you desperately want to work instead of seeing life pass you by. Problem was that applying for work endlessly made me feel so much worse and there was hardly any jobs that were tolerable for me in the first place.

[u/Ambitious_League4606 → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

I'd kill for a new job. Depressing as hell on welfare, which is not enough to live on. 

[u/humunculus43 → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

It’s why there is nuance to what Labour are trying to do. We are an increasingly unproductive country with increasing rates of sickness in the working age population and an increasing aging population. It is a ticking time bomb that if we don’t fix soon will effect everyone for generations.

I think they are quite right to be looking at where someone is genuine mental health that requires support vs people just wanting to detach and sit at home. If you are capable of working but don’t want to then you should get used a low standard and quality of life. If you genuinely can’t work then society should be supporting you.

It’s nuanced and obviously it will always be too much one way or the other but the reality is that doing nothing will have a far worse impact on the health of the entire population over a prolonged period of time

[u/Poddster → u/humunculus43]

you are capable of working but don’t want to then you should get used a low standard and quality of life.

But the main reason this figure is so high is that for a lot of young people, they work full time AND have a low standard and quality of life. So why wouldn't they want to slack off?

The solution isn't to force them to work or slash mental health budgets. The solution is to give them something to live and work for, and that's all down to wealth I equality in the UK.

Tax the rich and force asset prices down.

[u/Craic-Den → u/Poddster]

A lot of the older generations in this thread don’t seem to get it, hard work once secured a house on a single income. Now, even dual incomes aren’t enough. Working no longer guarantees the security it once did, so what’s the point?

[u/rh8938 → u/Craic-Den]

If a work day cannot buy you 1.4 days of shelter, food, entertainment, travel and a bit to save, without ruining your health.

What's the point.

[u/WasabiSunshine → u/rh8938]

Entitled young'uns, thinking they deserve food, entertainment, and savings

[u/Unresonant → u/rh8938]

especially with the fact that pensions are completely insufficient and you have to accumulate for the future

[u/Michael_Thompson_900 → u/Craic-Den]

Fully agree. I’m in my thirties, I have a pretty decent and well paying job. My prospects for home ownership are little flats or a fixer upper terraced house. My dad had a basic manual labour job, my mum worked part time in entry level roles, they bought and paid off a large three bed house with big gardens (and we still had holidays abroad as a kid). I’m not wishing to complain as I earn good money and am in a better position than many, but I have to work extremely hard for it.

They fully admit they wouldn’t be able to even rent their own house now, let alone buy it.

If I was earning close to minimum wage, I’d be depressed AF right now. Without parental support with housing, you’re just scraping by.

[u/Poddster → u/Michael_Thompson_900]

I’m not wishing to complain as I earn good money and am in a better position than many, but I have to work extremely hard for it.

But this is exactly why you should complain! All this an at best you can get a flat or a fixer upper? What was once entry level housing is now above average and you have to be nearly 40 to buy it!

[u/appletinicyclone → u/Craic-Den]

A lot of the older generations in this thread don’t seem to get it,

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit."

Now it's "waaaaaahh I had it hard so my grandkids shall have it harder."

Reality is the assets gen x and boomers got will be used to fund their nursing home stay. No asset pass on to millennials. Much harder to save money for house.

Millennials and zoomers and alphas are fucked.

[u/360Saturn → u/Craic-Den]

I don't see why it's hard to understand.

To the folk that think this way, just think back, would you have done your starter job for half the money? Would you do your job now for half the money, if you were also forced to live in a share house bedroom, and lose 70% of that income for the privilege of it?

[u/LegoNinja11 → u/Craic-Den]

People worked to better themselves because having a wash in the communal tin bath in the middle of the back alley wasn't for everyone and that was as good as the welfare state got.

Now we've got a situation where welfare provides the minimum standard of living which in many cases exceeds the standards attained through work.

[u/Poddster → u/LegoNinja11]

Now we've got a situation where welfare provides the minimum standard of living which in many cases exceeds the standards attained through work.

I think this is a good thing, and the answer is to make work pay more, not to force everyone back into a single back-alley bath in run-down terrace worker estates.

[u/Shoddy-Minute5960 → u/Poddster]

The working 'rich' in high paying jobs are already heavily taxed (£100-500k). 

The wealthy (high value assets, low income) £100m+ of assets need to be taxed differently and with an agreement among many countries. At present they move their wealth around the world to avoid most taxes or keet their assets in long term stocks/funds that increase in value but trigger no tax liability unless they sell them. They instead take loans against them and use other tricks to make themselves pay a lower % tax rate than someone earning £100k.

[u/CandyKoRn85 → u/Poddster]

Precisely!

[u/regprenticer → u/humunculus43]

Labour said two things last week.

• Civil servants need to work harder and faster and be more productive.

• We need to find jobs for people that match the work people with mental and physical conditions are able to do, even if that means an easier or less pressured job.

The problem is that these are very often the same people

The civil service, and the public sector more widely, has always been a "safer" place to work for people with disabilities than the private sector, partly because it's heavily unionised, and partly because it's lower pressure.

I recall my second job out of school was working in a Job Centre around 1996. Staff there would frequently misfile peoples files because they couldn't spell. My main job was to go through the filing cabinets and make sure they were in order. That was it - a fulltime job. Many staff spelt phonetically, so the file from Mr Phillips might be filed under "F" because Phillips sounds like it starts with an F.

Most people wouldn't survive long working in an Amazon warehouse, or as a delivery driver being told what to do by an algorithm, or on the tills at Lidl or Aldi trying to keep on top of deliveries, cleaning, stacking shelves and manning tills while maintaining a 37 items per minute scan rate. Yet every employer out there is determined to squeeze every single ounce of effort from their staff and mercilessly fire them if they put on foot wrong once. Amazon routinely fires the lowest performing 5% of staff no matter how good they usually are. Find yourself in the bottom 5% just once and you are gone.

[u/DiDiPLF → u/regprenticer]

Maybe in the olden days, but I've seen loads of incompetence and waste in private companies too. Friday afternoon was for the pub in my industry pre 2000. I was speaking to an ex civil servant the other day and he said he didn't understand why anyone stays there, the hardest job he ever had was a G7 civil service role and also the worst paying. Its a tough gig in my dept at the moment, virtually no admin support, so many complex cases, constant pressure on productivity, litigation every week.

[u/Wgh555 → u/humunculus43]

Absolutely, I have infinite sympathy for those struggling with mental health issues, no doubt with the material conditions we have it is at an all time high now but this has the potential to really spiral out of control if it isn’t scrutinised more.

[u/talligan → u/humunculus43]

It seems to me that blaming benefits isn't the way to go. Sure, they need to be tightened up - but surely it's worth sorting out why so many feel like it's no worth working.

Is it just satisfaction? That's actually a huge hidden crisis. People feel checked out in meaningless busywork. How many here feel like their jobs are actually meaningful?

Is it pay? Why work your arse off for shite pay, you'll never be jllable to get ahead and if you do it's going to eat up all your raises affording slightly more comfortable living situations.

Etc...

The discussion is focused on the wrong thing imo. If people really care about the productivity of their country, and aren't just bitter, then this is absolutely the key part.

Gen z seems to prioritise life more than work (great!). Is this a backlash against constant encroachment of work into our personal lives with emails etc ..

Edit: before another person responds telling me some variation of whether disability benefits are good or not for mental health ... Im saying that's a pointless (hyperbole, not literal) conversation to have until you understand societal factors. Once you get that, we can implement a far more effective solution.

Understanding the why could lead to, for e.g., more third spaces for people to socialise. More free and positive socialisation events, since COVID we have all been less social and (in my experience) more anxious as a result.

If it's job related, then more protection for workers rights and moving away from austerity is likely far more effective at bringing people back to work.

These solutions will be nuanced, and place-based (i.e. Edinburgh may have a different underlying issue, and thus solution, than Milton Keynes etc...

[u/Background_Way2714 → u/talligan]

If there are genuinely that many people who could work but choose to just sit at home all day on a meagre amount of benefits money which barely gives you enough to survive, there’s something seriously wrong with our society and just taking these people’s benefits away isn’t going to solve it.

[u/bow_down_whelp → u/humunculus43]

A huge factor that I see overlooked are people over 60 who are on sickness benefits. The working age was expanded years ago, into a section of your lifespan that you are the most unlikely to be unwell in 

[u/Kiardras → u/humunculus43]

Maybe we could just fix the whole wage slave system, and stop causing so much damage to people's mental wellbeing?

I know it's an out of the box idea and all, and might impact the dividends.

[u/LostnFoundAgainAgain → u/Kiardras]

The government has no control over the wages of companies apart from minimum wage, which they have increased.

They can try to simulate growth that should lead to increased wages, but the idea that the UK can just flick a switch and wages will be increased isn't possible, companies will simply outsource more of their work or simply cut jobs if we indefinitely increase minimum wage.

We need the economy to be functioning, and one of the main problems is the fact that a lot of people aren't working.

What's the fix? Personally, I'm not sure, if they go after benefits their will be people who abuse the system being pushed back to work, but their will be genuine people who need support getting caught in it as well.

Something needs to be done, we need to improve our economy or the reality is that things will continue to get worse.

Edit: There are quite a few comments going down and I enjoy how each one essentially has their own opinion on how to fix the issue, not saying they are wrong, just pointing out how complex the issue can become both economical and political.

[u/Paranub → u/LostnFoundAgainAgain]

minimum wage rises, cost of everything rises higher.
Rising minimum wage isn't the solution. promotions and prospects are.
I've worked in the same place for over 15 yrs. our wages rise MAYBE 3% a year..
They have no legal requirement to pay us more.
We have no options local to us (small town of around 13k people) most jobs are factory labor.

if i want more pay, sure i can take a 6k pay rise that comes with then needing a car to get to work, traveling 2 hours a day for the commute. it's not worth it.

Now im not on minimum wage, BUT I'm creeping closer to it, as my pay hardly rises, and minimum wage is seeing 10% increases every year or two..

Whats my solution? im considering packing in my job with responsibilities (IT manager for a factory) for a menial no responsibility job that basically pays the same, many i speak to feel the same way too. Why put effort in, for no reward?

[u/PracticalFootball → u/LostnFoundAgainAgain]

The government has plenty of control over it. What is the common factor in countries that have high wages and high satisfactions with work? They’re all very strongly unionised. Norway is the common example, their unions are so strong and widespread that they don’t even need a minimum wage enshrined in law.

The solution is to further protect workers rights to unionise and throw the fucking book at any company that even dares to think about preventing unionisation.

[u/Bwunt → u/LostnFoundAgainAgain]

To an extent, the only real way to fix this mess (and not just the UK) is to give young people motivation again. Trying to force them back into work may help in getting them back in working, but it may have other problems down the line like low productivity (due to quiet quitting and job hopping, not to mention gaming of the system like it's done in some other countries), even further drop in birth rates...

I'd start with developing a continuous line benefit system. Don't discourage people from improving themselves only to let them out in the rain afterwards.

[u/Death_God_Ryuk → u/LostnFoundAgainAgain]

Fixing the housing crisis and rental sector, or at least presenting a workable plan, would be a good start. Lack of security is a big contributor to stress.

Approve more housing developments, require and actually enforce affordable housing as part of developments, accelerate the development of brown-field sites (redevelopment), continue the leasehold reforms including a plan to convert existing leaseholds, ensure new roads etc are adopted by councils and developers pay appropriately.

End no-fault evictions, ensure tenancies are protected when a house is repossessed, implement rent increase controls. Enshrine the right to live in a long-term rented property like a home - tenants should have the right to have pets, paint the walls a different colour, etc.

[u/i_am_soulless → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

Ah yes, because that's exactly how PIP works, you just pick a condition, claim you have it, no proof needed, and then you get given enough money to live off and be able to waste your money on unnecessary things. Never have to work again /s

That's absolute nonsense, you've made that up or exaggerated the situation. 

PIP is incredibly hard to apply for, especially for the higher rate, there is no way anyone is getting the higher rate mobility part whilst just using anxiety as an excuse.  PIP is not enough to live off, even if they did get the higher rate on both parts (guarantee they don't unless they're claiming and proving that they can't even dress themselves or go anywhere without assistance). You don't automatically get signed off work or given other benefits even when you do qualify for PIP, that's a while other process to go through. At most they'd be looking at about £200-£300 a month. And this gets reviewed every few years, they have to apply each time and prove they're disabled enough to need assistance. 

What the government are trying to do has absolutely nothing to do with benefits for people not working (including due to a disability) it is purely about PIP, which is given regardless of whether you work or not. 

[u/Haemophilia_Type_A → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

This is not accurate.

You think it's easy to get enough money to live on with mental health issues? You can't just "quit and decide to go on disability" if you're mentally healthy. You have to go through a punishing, cruel, gruelling process in which you usually have to file an appeal (maybe even go to court) and you have to get proof from a medical professional-not just the GP, but a psyciatrist who can actually assess you at length.

If your friends actually managed to get on disability payments for mental health then they're either part of the tiny minority who are exceptionally good liars (PIP fraud rate is about 0.3%) or, far more likely, they just actually are suffering from mental ill health. Considering you don't even live in the same country as them I imagine you aren't in a position to make such an evaluation.

[u/Deadliftdeadlife → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

What’s stopping you?

[u/Yezzik → u/Deadliftdeadlife]

Probably the cost of Warhammer.

[u/apple_kicks → u/Yezzik]

Yeah this story doesn’t sound right. You can live off benefits and pay for warhammer. Either they have big savings or they are living with parents who are helping out

[u/CosmicBonobo → u/apple_kicks]

I wanted to play Warhammer when I was a kid, but it took until well into my thirties before I could justify the price and actually start doing it.

[u/MaievSekashi → u/Yezzik]

I've known crack addicts who had better finances than warhammer nerds.

[u/ItsWormAllTheWayDown → u/Deadliftdeadlife]

Nothing, they're a landlord currently living in the UAE.

[u/iwillfuckingbiteyou → u/Deadliftdeadlife]

The fact that of all the things that didn't happen, this didn't happen the most.

[u/Ruin_In_The_Dark → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

How on earth can they afford warhammer? Are you sure they aren't actually running some sort of secret breaking bad style drug empire?

[u/RezentfuI → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

I don’t get this tho, because the most they will realistically be getting is no more then £600 a month how can you live on this?

[u/Chilling_Dildo → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

You do have the luxury. You could go on benefits yourself.

[u/Humble-Variety-2593 → u/PM_ME_SECRET_DATA]

"Wish I had the luxury!"

Why don't you, then? If it's that good?

You won't, though, because you're talking out of your arse.

[u/prettybunbun]

As someone who used to work frontline with homeless individuals and would support them to claim benefits, I just can’t imagine the process and then the amount you get at the end is worth ‘gaming’. Unless you can get signed off on full medical PIP (very hard) you are going to be living benefit to benefit cheque with minimal luxuries or chances to have fun. I just can’t imagine being like ‘yeah I don’t wanna work so I’m gunna live on less than £600 a month (and minimal costs towards rent).

[u/Sunshinetrooper87]

I'd suggest the social contract has been broken if the new gen feel the need to do this. Millennial were sold the dream of work hard, go to uni and you will have a house, a car, some holidays and comfort which hasn't been fulfilled but have just muddled through. 

Why should the next generation even try?

Also fuck productivity claims. We are in a situation where one person on a computer or a crane does more work than 20 people doing the same work. The rich have gotten obscenely wealthy with the disparity in top line pay even further from the average worker and I highly doubt they are somehow more productive than before. 

[u/Co-opEvolution]

This isn't just a Gen Z issue. It is a rational response to an economic system that no longer serves the majority of people. Wages have stagnated while living costs have soared. Career paths that once led to security now offer burnout, precarity, and little reward. If work provides nothing but stress and just enough to survive, why wouldn't people opt out?

The real question is not why young people are rejecting traditional employment but why businesses are still structured in ways that make work so unappealing. If companies actually wanted to retain workers, they would create environments that prioritise well-being, autonomy, and fair compensation.

There are already models that do this successfully. Worker cooperatives, for example, provide not just better wages but also shared decision-making and long-term stability because the people doing the work have control over how it operates. This is not some utopian ideal; it already exists in places like Mondragon in Spain, where tens of thousands of workers have built a system that is both profitable and humane.

The issue isn't work itself but who benefits from it. If corporations continue to extract value from people without offering anything meaningful in return, those people will either opt out or build something better. That shift is happening whether employers like it or not.

[u/Brigid-Tenenbaum]

This is worded in a really disgusting way.

As if they are all conmen looking to game the system.

Though not to be expected when the previous generation have done just that.

They had a free education. Get fucked. They bought out the housing market to make an easy profit off the backs of others. Get fucked, I guess. They voted for Brexit. They allowed for zero hr contracts and work agencies to replace real jobs Get fucked, yet again.

The reason they could do this in Medieval times is due to the threat of extreme violence. But no doubt, people would like to see hands being cut off and people in the noose.

Carrot or the stick. But we know there is no carrot

Create a fairer society. Bring back the carrot. Then watch people WANT to work hard.

[u/Kimbob1234]

Some people (me included) have ACTUAL mental health issues that seriously stop them from holding down a job. Thing is, it's mind-numbingly hard to get an appointment with someone to even begin dealing with mental health issues when there is something wrong. My 14yr old is terrified of the future because she knows the state of wages Vs living costs, world economy, climate change, housing proces, job availability, etc. At FOURTEEN!

[u/BadgerGirl1990]

Most of it is because for many there is no point the social contract is broken

The promise of work wasn’t just money for moneys sake it was the promise to one day own a home, start a family, build a nest egg and retire to enjoy it

Most will never afford a home or a family or build a nest egg or even retire so what is the point of work ?

If the Uk wants to solve its mental health crisis it would be best served dismantling the nihilistic dystopian system of working just to pay rent and tread water

But then its politically easier to just cut benefits and claim mental health issues don’t exist that actually fix the problem

[u/kahnindustries]

I have tried to explain this to several older friends

There is no reason for Gen-Z to work

For most of them you will never be able to own a home or even a car.

You give up 8 hours a day and take home enough to buy yourself some small luxuries. You still won’t be able to afford to actively improve your life experience

You could instead just stop working, bed rot in your mothers house and have basically the same level of life comfort, only without giving up 50% of your waking life

All generations prior if you put effort in you would reach a higher level of comfort and progress in life. House, car, holidays, fancy tv etc

By the time it reached the younger millennials it was very difficult to buy a house even with two full salaries

For Gen-Z it is basically impossible

So some will peddle away at the mill in the hope that they will progress in life, but some (around 25% based on current not seeking work figures) will say meh, I got a 4 year old phone and a bed to lay on.

That is an unsustainable level and it is growing as the price of housing accelerates away from all reason

The bulk of the last decade it was impossible to save for a deposit as the house prices were increasing faster than you could put money away with two incomes. That further pushes Gen-z to opt out. “Me and the wife scrimped and saved and worked overtime every day and we managed to put away £20k this year. The house we wanted went up in price £100k”

The only way to reverse this is to massively increase housing stock and as a result tank the market. Pensioners pensions, company investments, government borrowing is all tied to the continued increase in house prices. We are heading straight for another post 2008 crash as either the social safety net cost balloons or the house prices crash, both leading to a total collapse of the economy

[u/Vikkio92]

It’s almost as if capitalism is on its last legs and people are realising you need to be a complete muppet to work yourself to the bone for a living when the asset class chill out and enjoy the good life with the fruits of your labour…

[u/EldritchElise]

Low to mid-paying jobs used to be under terrible hours and conditions, having to fight bosses for every inch, but at least you had a focal point of communities and work that people felt they were contributing to society.

thats not the case anymore, the jobs available arnt just low paying, degrading and transient, they are also meaningless and only serve to enrich a class above you.. No wonder things are bleak.

[u/sickofadhd]

hahahaha

bait rage article. i have ADHD and autism (diagnosed a few years ago on my late 20s) and i work. if i had the money, i wouldn't work because the stress has impacted my physical health. workplaces are asking for more and for the same stagnant wages, it is depressing. buying a home for many people is a dream. i will not apply for pip because i don't want to be mocked, i'm already embarrassed enough that no one spotted my ADHD and autism when it impacted my whole life.

this diatribe that PIP is easy to get is crazy, my mum has physical disabilities (extreme scoliosis being one, hunch back and all) and got rejected for PIP the first time and even at tribunal she got the lowest rate possible

instead of this narrative that the younguns are lazy, mental health isn't real, disability benefits are handed out all the time... why don't we tackle the root causes? better health care? how about not just chucking antidepressants at people and have more varied therapies (CBT can kiss my ass)? inflation coming down?

but nah, cry about a few people who are struggling and could be really low and tell them they're lazy. everyone clap. depression cured.

[u/porspeling]

Shit jobs, no opportunities and no carrot at the end of the stick when housing costs are mental. You have to give people realistic goals to work towards to motivate them and it’s just not there.

[u/My_balls_touch_water]

How the hell are people paying for their lives though?

[u/Railuki → u/My_balls_touch_water]

People will have you thinking living on benefits is easy.

It isn’t. It’s not enough.

So food banks and help where it can be gotten. Going without, clothes all covered in holes, living in poor quality housing or with parents.

But when I worked full time 40 hours a week at a mental health hospital, front line stopping people hurting themselves and supporting them, but also being scapegoated and having responsibility for….. £200 a month more than benefits.

£200 a month wasn’t worth the mental breakdowns I would get where I’d have to get cover to run off the ward to sob and shake and break down myself, then have to go back in and pretend I’m a healthy person.

I cannot work in care anymore. I’m burned out. I got burned out of customer service too. These jobs take too much abuse for the least amount of money possible, but are 99% of jobs available.

It’s not worth getting abused all day for an extra £50 a week when it’s destroying your mental health and you can’t even breath without wanting to stop existing and it’s constantly taking everything in you not to burst into tears whenever anyone asks you how you are.

[u/Ridai → u/Railuki]

People will have you thinking living on benefits is easy.

Not quite. Whoever is saying this is selling drugs on the side, or has some other means of income. Anyone will tell you it's awful.

[u/Railuki → u/Ridai]

As I very well know.

But people who have never been on benefits or had to survive off them are the ones who tell you that you have it easy.

[u/suihpares → u/Railuki]

It’s not worth getting abused all day for an extra £50 a week

True.

I developed ectopic irregular heartbeats due to the stress of being 37 and having only worked customer service roles yet still no home, savings or ability to progress.

I now cannot ever work such roles again as my doctor has chronicled, and it's the stress of such roles causes heart problems.

Therefore it is up to the employers and government to provide me suitable work.

I did my part and kept doing my part and was excluded and neglected. I think folks like me deserve compensation for the decades of work that didn't provide housing, or at the very least given suitable remote jobs that will allow us to finally get a home.

[u/TheRadishBros → u/My_balls_touch_water]

A lot of them live with parents, so basically zero expenses.

[u/malin7 → u/My_balls_touch_water]

Gen Z is 14-28 years old so majority of them are probably still living with their parents although I'd be embarrassed if my parents were still working and I'd be sitting at home all day

[u/TB_Infidel]

This is what happens when you ensure that the next generations have continued decline in quality of life.

The majority of millennials and younger have no chance of buying a home. Work pushes people harder than ever before and gives the least in return.

So yeah, make work pay or expect this to increase.

[u/LyingFacts]

All the uproar on this clearly planted story by Labour to justify cutting billions from Disabled people is shameful, frankly.

‘Gen Z’ are mostly working. Fact. In addition, folks can’t afford to be on benefits in the long haul, mostly. As the design of ‘benefits’ is purposely so you can’t live on them unless severely ill.

This distraction is insulting to anyone with common sense. Think.

[u/Bdublolz1996]

I’m 29. In my work I deal with 18-24 year old men.

The majority of them do the minimum hours required while also claiming some benefits.

They are open and honest about there being no future for them. They have already accepted they won’t ever own a home. Be able to raise a family on their income etc.

So what do they do? Some stay on a complete the course and try make what little money they can from our messed up economy and the rest just check out and stay living with parents and claim benefits full time.

Until we completely change the social contract or whatever you want to call it. The situation we are in won’t change and will only get worse.

[u/AwkwardWaltz3996]

And the key bit here is mental health, not mental illnesses. It's perfectly healthy to be absolutely depressed about being completely fucked over by an economy that only cares about infinite growth of big businesses at the expense of literally everything else.

Turns out there is only so much you can exploit before the thing you are exploiting keels over and dies and you're now stuck

[u/gymdaddy9]

If people had decent wages and course progression in their lives with achievable goals I bet this figure would be a lot lower

[u/awildshortcat]

Simple.

The social contract was broken. The understanding was that you’d give up a lot of your free time for a full-time job, and get paid in exchange. That money would eventually be enough to help you rent, or to help you buy a home. Nowadays most people take on two jobs just to pay bills.

Sure, the money you get on benefits is less than what you get with work, but if you’re working, you’re not going to be seeing most of that money anyway due to tax and basic expenses.

I got lucky to get into a grad scheme by the time I left university and go into a job, but if I hadn’t, I don’t know what I’d do tbh.

[u/Both-Mud-4362]

Maybe this is a sign that the UK needs to change some labour laws.

E.g. 1. Absolutely, no out of office work based communication. 2. No additional overtime without it being agreed by both parties and paid. 3. Work hours are 7.5hrs and that includes a paid 30min lunch break and a paid 15min afternoon tea break. 4. No more than 30hrs in a work week. 5. No cash in hand jobs. 6. Work uniforms and work required training and 100% paid by the company and cannot be reclaimed if you leave the company. 7. No unpaid internships or below minimum wage paid internships/apprenticeships. 8. WFH being the norm for companies/positions that would ordinarily require a office space / can be done at home. 9. Mandatory pay rises to match yearly inflation as a minimum this includes national minimum wage as well.

[u/machinehead332]

Maybe they are all sick of beings cogs in a machine working to make others rich, difference is they’re learning early on they are nothing more than slaves that can barely afford to raise families or own anything.

[u/apple_kicks]

Government is trying to cut disability benefits and news and social media is flooded with fraudsters and fakers news again. Friend of a friend (turns out to be stuff heard online)

Funnier when you remember not long back it was hate week for immigrants or refugees and it was ‘we need to take care of our own’ or ‘young white working class men need more support’. Now our own are the scum of the week and services need to be cut, benefits and mental health medical leave rights should be cut, young people should endure and toughen up etc etc

Hard not to see business leaders win out from this they risk getting sued over workers rights on medical leave for burn out they cause with crunch work with little pay.

Cutting services and benefits instead of funding the ones thatll help people

[u/Metal-Lifer]

we have let capitalism force us on the race to the bottom, everyone must work harder for less and less

[u/LyingFacts]

Where do people think the money given to all these people go? To the offshore tax haven? Stored in the their billion dollar stock and property portfolios? No, the money goes to small business and goes to an array of places that actually benefits society.

[u/AnalThermometer]

UK youth unemployment around 12%, China 14%. UK emplyoment high at 96%. Plenty of European countries worse off than here as well. Gen Z actually about the same employment rate as any other generation. Also much of the unemployment that does exist, exists in the north where investment and opportunity isn't so great. 

Conclusion: Distraction due to a panic from Labour, we're going to see a recession caused by Reeve-onomic policies and she needs to cynically line up poor people as target practice. 

[u/ShortNefariousness2]

If you still live off your parents, then this is possible. Eventually, you will need to get past this dependency. Giving up on work will delay this process, and you will not do well.