Generation X Grows Antsy in Job Market

Recession Fuels Discontent Toward Generation Y and Resentment of Baby Boomers

(AP)  They're antsy and edgy, tired of waiting for promotion opportunities at work as their elders put off retirement. A good number of them are just waiting for the economy to pick up so they can hop to the next job, find something more fulfilling and get what they think they deserve. Oh, and they want work-life balance, too.

Sounds like Gen Y, the so-called "entitlement generation," right?

Not necessarily, say people who track the generations. In these hard times, they're also hearing strong rumblings of discontent from Generation X. They're the 32- to 44-year-olds who are wedged between baby boomers and their children, often feeling like forgotten middle siblings - and increasingly restless at work as a result.

"All of a sudden, we've gone from being the young upstarts to being the curmudgeons," says Bruce Tulgan, a generational consultant who's written books about various age groups, including his fellow Gen Xers.

This isn't the first time Gen Xers have faced tough times. They came of age during a recession and survived the dot-com bust of 2000. In recent years, though, more members of the generation - stereotyped early on as jaded individualists - had families or began settling down in other ways. It was time, they thought, to enjoy the rewards of paying some dues.

"We were starting to buy into the system, at least to some extent," Tulgan says, "and then we got the rug pulled out from under us."

Now, in this latest recession, nearly two-thirds of baby boomer workers, ages 50 to 61, say they might have to push back their retirement, according to a recent survey from Pew Research.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the age spectrum are Gen Yers, who are often cheaper to hire and heralded for their coveted high-tech knowledge, even though many Gen Xers consider themselves just as technologically savvy.

"It's so annoying," says Lisa Chamberlain, another Gen Xer who wrote the book "Slackonomics: Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction." "First, it was always the baby boomers overshadowing everything. Then there was this brief period in the mid-'90s where Gen X was cool.

"Now it's, 'What are the new kids doing?' It's like 'Yo, hello, the Google guys are Gen Xers."'

They can sound a little whiny. But there's also some evidence that Gen Xers really are being taken for granted at work.

One survey done this year for Deloitte Consulting LLP, for instance, found that nearly two-thirds of executives at large companies were most concerned about losing Gen Y employees, while less than half of them had similar concerns about losing Gen Xers.

The assumption is often that Gen Yers are the least loyal and most mobile, says Robin Erickson, a manager with Deloitte's human capital division.

However, she points out that a companion survey of employees found that only about 37 percent of Gen Xers said they planned to stay in their current jobs after the recession ends, compared with 44 percent of Gen Yers, 50 percent of baby boomers and 52 percent of senior citizen workers who said the same.

Everyone surveyed worried about job security. Gen X and Gen Y were most likely to complain about pay. But a "lack of career progress," was by far the biggest gripe from Gen Xers, with 40 percent giving that as a reason for their restlessness, compared with 30 percent of Gen Yers, 20 percent of baby boomers and 14 percent of senior workers.

Gen Yers, meanwhile, were more likely than the other generations to cite "lack of challenges in the job" as a reason they would leave, while baby boomers more often chose "poor employee treatment during the downturn" and a "lack of trust in leadership."

The Deloitte study warns of a "resume (C.V.) tsunami" once economic recovery begins, especially among Gen Xers, and notes that many executives were largely unaware of employee complaints unrelated to money.

Such findings don't surprise Rich Yudhishthu, a 37-year-old Gen Xer who's a business development consultant from Minneapolis.

"The lack of promotional opportunities has pretty much killed job loyalty within a generation," he says.

Liza Potts, a 35-year-old professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, agrees, but also notes that the disillusionment took hold for many of her peers as far back as childhood.

"Many of my friends had hoped to have jobs like their parents - places they would stay forever that would take care of them like they did their parents. But then we saw that start to crumble for our folks," she says, recalling friends whose fathers and mothers got laid off from companies such as IBM or had to relocate.

Now worried about their own foreclosures, debt and unemployment, her generation is left to do the soul-searching their parents did.

"Is there still time to become something different? Must we just accept where we are? Is there time to innovate elsewhere?" asks Potts who left her own career in the software and Internet industry for a life in academia. It's meant less money, she says, but also more freedom to choose her work hours and projects.

In Chicago, 40-year-old real estate agent Adon Navarette has taken on extra jobs to make it, from consultant for an energy supply company to starting his own health and wellness business. He's heard his peers sniping about other generations, but also thinks their experience with other rough economic patches makes them resilient, too.

It's a pivotal moment, he says.

"What's going to define me as a Gen Xer is how I come out of this. What's going to define me is, 'What have I done to allow myself to take advantage of the market when the market turns around?"' he says.

Sometimes, it means working for less money.

Jon Anne Willow, co-publisher of ThirdCoastDigest.com, an online arts and culture site in Milwaukee, is among employers who've recently been able to hire more experienced candidates for jobs traditionally filled by 20somethings.

They're hungry to work, she says. And as she sees it, that gives her fellow Gen Xers and the baby boomers she's hired a distinct advantage over a lot of the Gen Yers she's come across.

"When the dust settles, they'll be exactly as they were before and we'll just have to sift through them and take the ones that actually get it and hope the rest find employment in fast food," she quips.

Spoken like a truly jaded Gen Xer.

[genxlives]

(The Previous Comments Prove that Only old People Watch CBS)

Baby Boomers are all pathetic and just can't seem to come to terms that they wasted what they should have been saving and investing in, whether financially, educationally or durable, long lasting goods.

Where on earth did all those "peace, love, we can change the world," environmentally minded people go by the time we got to the '80's? Where did they all go?? What happened to their ideology?

Now that some people (Gen X) stick to their guns, and call them on their complete miserable failure and abandonment of their ideals, they whine just as loudly as they claim gen X does.

Dudes, at least we know where we stand and kept our principles and ideals intact as we became adults.

Losers. Don't worry, we'll clean it up. And we'll be fine in the end, we have 30+ years to learn from your failures.

[PeerAbuse]

Wow, you got us down pat. Disloyal, living in the land of do as we please? The need to avoid any responsibility whatsoever? Lets not forget the catty behavior we enable and how we hang others out to dry. Afterall, its all about ME......

I am ashamed to be a member of this generation and have cultivated myself into a baby boomer for these reasons.

I am shocked the article did not mention how Gen x tries to divide and conquer at work by using petty behavior to get others fired.....

We are only reeping what we have sewn as far as I am concerned. Guys, grow up! You are in your 30's and 40's now and your catty crap at work looks stupid! Set an example for Gen y aka Millenials and learn something from the Boomers. Stop making it all about YOU!

[nowhiningallowed]

Maybe their mommies and daddies can fix all of their entitlement expectation mentality concerns. News flash: You're not the special little dears as raised by your doting parents. Get some backbone kids and just tough it out, like the rest of us who've worked most of their life and have earned the right to complain. Get in line and wait your turn. Consider it like an extended timeout.

[IrishWench01]

Okay, read it and still trying to figure out how their gripes are much (if any) different from the gripes of the boomers. Granted, I am at the youngest age of the boomers, but I hear the same thing from those older than me. Many of us are enduring crappy work environment, lousy wages (I made more than this when I was 18), distrust in our employers who could pull the rug out from under us at any moment, have just as much responsibility and economic strife. Would I like to retire? Of course. I've been working since I was 16 and there is no real retirement in my future. It is what it is and my children will do far better because I have ensured this.

Its tough all over, why should anyone be immune except by having had the foresight to plan and the luck to have it work out. Even those who fall in that catagory are struggling. Sounds like more whining to me. I suppose those over 50 are supposed to just roll over and give their jobs away. I see plenty of younger people gainfully employed, to include everyone of the managers at the very large store where I now work. Only one is over 40.
My Gen Y son doesn't waste time whining. He works his butt off and seems to be able to climb the ladder. Does he get paid what he needs and deserves? No. But he just keeps truckin and climbing that ladder and making plans to be prepared for better opportunities.

[far_point200]

"The lack of promotional opportunities has pretty much killed job loyalty within a generation."

There are a lot of reasons for disloyalty. Loyalty is certainly not dead in every organiztion nor is it inherent to single generation.

The lack of promotional opportunities is a given in any organization. Not everyone starting at the bottom can rise to the middle and upper levels. Job hopping can be a solution to rising up the corporate ladder, but only if you actually have some talent. If you job hop too frequently, especially without career advancement, your resume will end up in file 13 (the trash) because it shows your loyatly lies to yourself rather than any organization.

Loyalty to a company dies when upper management fails in its job to maintain a stable work environment for its greatest asset, its people.

I have found over the years that some upper managements live in ivory towers and do not fully understand the markets within which they operate in or wish to get into. A flawed business plan into these markets will destablize the organization resulting in chaos and an unstable work invironment which will eventually lead to disloyalty. This seems to me to be the number one cause of of employee disloyalty and it spans all generations. Some of the many public corporation examples that resulted in mass employee disloyalty would be MCI, Enron and the mergers of Time Warner with AOL (2000) and Service Corporation International with Amedco (1986).

[revlin1]

WHAT JOB MARKET? There isn't any except for created federal and state and local govt jobs and everyone knows those go to cronyism.

[skepticalJM]

Divide and conquer the Capitalist way. We should not be looking at what "Generation" we are, but how as "people", we can help each other combat the effects of an economic system that is trying to turn us against each other. Greed is destroying ALL of us!

[hypnotoad72]

Life is what we make of it.

Most of us work hard to do well for ourselves.

Most of us help our coworkers and complete strangers.

The media also exaggerates, at times (not always), about Group ____ being lazy or whatever else. (As with all things, "the truth is in the middle".)

Still, it used to be said that staying with one employer was good. Now it's bad, apparently. I'm sure the latter will be bad again with the former becoming good eventually as well.

[Skirt-Lifter]

""Still, it used to be said that staying with one employer was good.""

It's still good ... for the employer!

[Ms_enza]

Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

[Skirt-Lifter]

I LOVE to pack my bong with killer green bud!

[I_am_me1953]

RE: Skirt-Lifter

..........ROFLMFAO ...........

[Skirt-Lifter]

"All of a sudden, we've gone from being the young upstarts to being the curmudgeons," says Bruce Tulgan
_______________

Of course Bruce!!! a product of aging...sheesh.

[cgillasp]

Do you guys do real news? I mean, nothing was said here.

[graigo]

The Boomers aren't the "Me" Generation for nothin'. I watched my Boomer parents go through the recessions of the early 1980's and 1990's, complaining about the lack of money and how poor we were, but never really seeing them alter their lifestyle in anyway. My dad worked for 35 years for the automotive industry (making $60/hour...) and my mother had a white collar job. Now (divorcing after 30 years of marriage--another Boomer habit which me and my GenX friends have noticed...), they are struggling. The reality is, they rarely had to sacrifice, born into a post-war culture of excess and entitlement. My own grandmother (part of the Greatest Generation...), one day commented that it was their generations fault for the excess and irresponsibility of the Boomers--"We gave them everything we didn't have; we spoiled them". Now the Boomers are scraping to make up for all the frivolous spending of the past 40 years by clogging-up the employement pool so to speak. As GenX'rs, we've got at least another decade to wait. Thanks Mom and Dad.

[inketolstoy]

Don't forget the social security legacy mess that X's have inherited. Someone born in the late 60's to early 80's can look forward to paying social security their entire life, only to have it run out when they reach their 60's (if not a little sooner). No wonder gen. X is bitter, they are getting stuck with the bill for the party the previous generation threw. Just imagine how bitter the next generation of Americans will be when handed a fifty trillion federal deficit.

[askagain]

inketolstoy - Isn't that what the current administration is doing? We will be sending the bills to our children and grandchildren. Whatever happened to pay as you go?

[excop1949]

They're antsy and edgy, tired of waiting for promotion opportunities at work as their elders put off retirement. A good number of them are just waiting for the economy to pick up so they can hop to the next job, find something more fulfilling and get what they think they deserve. Oh, and they want work-life balance, too.

I WAS BORN IN 1949, AND I HAVE SOME ADVICE FOR YOU GUYS...BE GLAD YOU HAVE A JOB, AND HANG ON TO HOUR HATS, 'CAUSE WE AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET!

[John_Merritt]

You mean to tell me the 'me' generation is impatient and upset because they are not getting what they want, when they want it? Now hopefully you have a greater appreciation for your parents and grandparents when they speak about 'hard times' and the 'great depression'.

These were not fallacies your parents were teaching you, they were lessons to be learned that no matter how much much work and dedication you commit to anything, there is an element completely out of your control. The only thing we have control over, are the emotions we wear, and the attitude in which we carry them out.

There is nothing guaranteed in this life and if you want something bad enough, you will commit the time, energy, attitude, passion and compassion that will carry you to the goal. To blame it on your parents is fruitless and self-serving. Welcome to the real world.

[pierson98]

Dear Sir:

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. The article was referring to people who are currently in their 30s, and their attitudes towards employment, money, and retirement. None of these people had parents telling them stories from the Great Depression (unless those parents were liars) - their parents were generally born in the post WWII era, and certainly not before late 30s. Parents of the Gen Xers were generally not alive during the Depression, and weren't old enough have any memories of it.

You obviously get some warm feeling from saying "now, looky here, sonny - In my day things were tough!" So let me clear it up for you: no one cares about your old man stories. Save it for the bingo parlor.

[askagain]

As a baby boomer, I vividly remember my parents describing life growing up during the depression. My parents lived through the depression and always discussed saving money for emergencies and rainy days and for their retirement years. And yes, my parents wanted us to have things and opportunities they could only dream about.

[hypnotoad72]

Most people do, and then are lambasted for a host of other excuses. I'm not going to list what they are.

And you're right, at some point something is out of our control. Whether that is due by accident (nature) or deliberate (societal norms) is another issue, some of which goes back into some of the qualifiers I mentioned above - you know, the ones I said I wouldn't mention. :)

[pierson98]

@askagain -

That's exactly the point - the Gen Xers mentioned in the article did NOT have parents (you) who grew up during the Great Depression? Did you even read-

Oh, never mind. *Sigh* Go back to breathing through your nose.

[clancy49]

Dear Gen X, Please insure that I could retire and live comfortably, not push a wagon cart, go through garbage to eat, steal clothes from good will boxes, and go to sleep in a cardboard. If you can insure that my rent would be paid, I would have food to eat, a new outfit now and then, all car repairs paid, gas to go to the doctor, medical, vision, and dental bills paid for. Give me a running car with gas and no repair bills, with connection to the internet so I could continue to order books through the library. Make my life not wealthy, but comfortable and you can have my job any time you want it. I am sixty and would love to retire, but could you survive on $800 a month? I am sixty and have worked since I was 13. All I get is $800 a month. Good Lord I would love to retire. I would love to give you my job.

[pierson98]

Did you ever SAVE ANY MONEY, old man? Why is it someone else's job to "make your life comfortable?" What were you doing with all the money you earned from (supposedly) working so hard for 47 years?

[askagain]

pierson98 - Show a little respect. No one wants to be described as "old man." You may not agree with the other poster, but that is no reason to be disrespectful.

[hypnotoad72]

That's "ensure".