The Raw Truth About Gen Z's Work Ethic

/// THIS WEEK

Earners,

Nearly half of Gen Z has a side hustle, they are putting in 8.5 extra hours of unpaid work weekly, and they are three times less likely than previous generations to have a job lined up at graduation. Yet the “lazy Gen Z” narrative persists. This week, we’re exploring why the hardest-working generation in recent memory keeps getting labelled as slackers, and what older generations are missing about the modern economy.

[ INSIGHT ]

There’s a fundamental disconnect between how Boomers measure work ethic and what Gen Z actually faces. Older generations grew up when effort was visible and rewarded: show up early, stay late, climb a predictable ladder, and eventually buy a house at three times your annual salary. That world shaped their entire understanding of what “hard work” looks like. But that world doesn’t exist anymore.

Let’s take a classic example. Meet Cole. He’s 24, graduated with $28,000 in student debt, and moved into an apartment where rent consumes 40% of his income. After months of searching, he landed a $60k entry-level role that asked for three years of experience. His father was trained on the job. Cole was handed a laptop and told to figure it out.

His real workday begins when the official one ends. He opens YouTube tutorials, takes online courses, joins Slack communities, and experiments with AI tools just to keep pace. The World Economic Forum says professional skills now have a shelf life of under five years. In tech fields, it’s even less. Cole feels this constantly.

He works from home occasionally, which his dad sees as luck. But for Cole, it’s the only time he can actually learn the systems he’s supposed to already know. His workday stretches because it has to. And even with all this effort, his income doesn’t stretch far enough, so he freelances eight to twelve hours weekly doing video editing. Weekends blur into work. Saturday mornings: colour correcting. Sunday nights: preparing for Monday.

He scrolls real estate listings not out of hope, but to understand what he’s aiming for. A starter home costs six times his salary. After two years, he wanted to job hop for better pay, but the market froze. Layoffs shape his workplace rhythm. Someone disappears from Slack. He gets an HR calendar invite, and his chest tightens. Luckily, it was just a scheduling mistake. Automation didn’t eliminate his job, but it removed the buffer around it. Every downturn tests who can learn fastest and contribute most broadly.

[ BREAKDOWN ]

Cole clocks 45 hours at his main job, another 10 hours learning new tools, and 8 hours freelancing every single week. Cole undoubtedly works hard, but the system keeps moving the goalposts.

Here’s what most people miss: every generation gets called lazy by the one before it. Social scientists call this juvenoia - the reflexive belief that youth are falling short.

But there’s a deeper economic pattern. Harvard economist Claudia Goldin’s research shows that each major economic transition forces the youngest generation to reinvent their relationship with work, while older cohorts interpret those adaptations as abandonment rather than responses to new pressures. The traditional stay-put loyalty has been replaced by necessary job mobility and polyworking as housing and education costs have far outpaced wages. The perceived laziness is actually a misunderstanding of an exhausted, highly adaptable response to a fundamentally different, arguably tougher, economic landscape.

[ TAKEAWAY ]

Gen Z isn’t lazy. They’re working harder than anyone gives them credit for; they’re just doing it in ways that don’t register on outdated metrics. The ground beneath them is less stable, so they’re running faster just to stay in place. If older generations followed someone like Cole for even one week, they’d see the truth: he’s grinding relentlessly in an economy that demands constant reinvention. The question isn’t whether Gen Z works hard enough. It’s whether the system they inherited will ever reward that effort the way it did for generations past.

Earn more,

TCE

[ MONEY TIP OF THE WEEK ]

If you’re juggling multiple income streams like many Gen Z workers, consider opening a separate checking account exclusively for side hustle income. Deposit everything there first, then transfer your “paycheque” to your main account on a monthly basis. This creates a buffer for irregular income, simplifies tax tracking, and helps you see exactly how much your side work contributes to your financial stability.

To watch the featured episode, check out the video below: