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No, Millennials Aren't a Bunch of Job-Hopping Flakes (fastcompany.com)
From a report: Today, Pew researchers published findings that refute yet another stereotype about millennials that actual millennials find infuriating: the idea that they're job-hopping more often than other generations. According to Pew's analysis of recent government data, "college-educated millennials are sticking with their jobs longer than their Gen X counterparts."
This just in.. Pew Researchers find out yet another stereotype only applies to a small percentage of the group. I can't wait to see the non-millennial minds blown when they conduct more research and find out the following: - Millennials are mutli-racial despite being portrayed as upper middle class and white - Millennial work ethics vary greatly - Some are hard workers and others are not - Millennial spending habits are all over the map - Some are savers and some are spenders - Some Millennials voted for Trump (GASP) Every generation is different.. I just hope one outright identifier of our generation is our acknowledgement of our differences and ability to cultivate a society where our differences are respected. In other words, be more specific when trying to identify trends across groups of people.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
The problem with holding one job for too long in IT Support is that you make less money with 2% raises over time than someone who has short-term contracts at different companies. I ran into an old coworker a few years ago during a job interview. He was still making the same kind of money that I made when we worked together 10+ years ago, but the company wanted to pay me 40% more for doing the same work. Fortunately, I had three job offers to pick from and went for the higher offer from a contracting agency.
There are two factors at play here. One, employers these days no longer offer as many incentives that lead to employee retention, and instead treat them as a disposable "human resource" to be squeezed in the eternal quest to maximize profit. It's virtually impossible to find an employer with a pension plan any more, and even benefits such as retirement and health insurance are becoming increasingly rare.
All of those benefits were taken for granted 30 years ago. When I was growing up in the 80's, the assumption was that you go to college, get a degree, then immediately get hired by a company and start building your retirement savings and pension while slowly working your way up the corporate ladder within the organization. These days, that's not as common. The baby boomers had those things, and lived under the assumption that each generation would be a little more well off than the last. Thus we were all told that if we worked just a little harder, we'd be more successful at the American dream.
Second, the loss of benefits and the downward trend of wages meant that more of us in the gen-x/pre-millenial generation spent years trying to delude ourselves that those types of job benefits were "just around the corner" and that our current job was just a stepping stone to the career that would give us job security and retirement savings. Now the reality of the new economy has set in and the benefits are vanishing, and most millennials have realized that in many cases the job they have is as good as it's going to get. Switching employers is also getting harder because there is so much competition these days; an opening that at one time would get 20-30 applicants now receives hundreds of applications from people looking for that elusive career.
Your parents were working for companies run by the greatest generation.
Gen X'ers worked for companies run by your parents. See the connection?
Now that Gen X is running the show, what is left seems to be more stable.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
As a Gen-Xer myself, I wasn't leaving my jobs, most of the time, the jobs were contracts or would end.
We didn't have stability like our parents before us or expect a wage hike without moving to another company.
Do the number separate the ones leaving vs those being let go?
My current position is the 1st in my career where I have made it past 5 years of service non-stop. I did work before in another field where I lasted more than 4 years but would end up on unemployment insurance every year for 3 months worth time more or less depending on production needs.
I think it's pretty easy to understand why job hopping is on the rise.
You also forgot that it was business that pioneered the idea that new management should sweep in and fire, er lay off, er downsize, er rightsize, er tell to fuck off a bunch of people.
It makes no sense to show the slightest shred of loyalty to a company that would fire you to gain a miniscule bump in quarterly profits.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
My parents were in careers where you could reasonably be expected to work in the same company all your life
Your (our) parents worked for companies that cared about employees. Layoffs were a last resort. New technology? Time to send some employees to get some training on that technology. And so on. The result was loyal employees, low hiring costs and massive institutional memory which made the company far more effective in the long run.
Then the long run became less important. Executive compensation moved from primarily salary with some bonuses/options to primarily bonuses/options with some salary. A big layoff would result in a large pile of cash because of how it could goose one quarter's results, even if it hurt the company in the long run. "Personnel" was replaced with "Human Resources". Training budgets became "waste" instead of a good investment. Same with the "R" in R&D. Employees were now lazy moochers taking away from the bottom line, instead of the people who actually create that bottom line.
Employees responded to this in the entirely logical way: if the company doesn't give a damn about the employees, the employees aren't going to give a damn about the company. And changing jobs every 3-5 years brought in larger raises than staying put.
Moving back to the old paradigm would require a massive philosophical change in the executive suite. So it's not going to happen any time soon.
The reason why millenials are demonized and discriminated against is because it's a lot easier to find a convenient scapegoat than to solve real problems. It's just classic dysfunctional behavior. In fact, I would say millenials are more brave about engaging in conflict about legitimate issues in our society and workplaces that are truly wrong and need to be fixed. They're armed with more knowledge and can't just be bullied into submission with a bunch of pseudo-intellectualist talk.
Would it surprise you to know that I, myself, am not a millenial? Here's what I have to say about typical "older people". If the music is too loud, you're too old. It's time for the old, obsolete ways of doing things that don't work in modern society to be put out to pasture. If that means old people need to go into nursing homes, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way in. You either embrace evolution and progress or you get left behind. Your choice. Choose wisely.
We'll make great pets