Gen Z Isn't Afraid of Unemployment, Suzy Welch Says
NYU Stern professor Suzy Welch told CNBC that "funemployment" shows a shift in how Gen Z views work.
The trend of pursuing fun activities while unemployed has taken off on TikTok in recent months.
Welch, the wife of the late "Neutron Jack" said younger people just "don't trust" their employers.
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New York University Stern School of Business professor Suzy Welch says there's been a "generational shift" in how younger people view unemployment — namely Gen Z is willing to make it fun.
She's the wife of hard-charging former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who was known as "Neutron Jack" — a reference to the neutron bomb — after he instituted huge job cuts across that conglomerate. But she's also a professor of management and senior advisor to the Brunswick Group, a CEO advisory firm, in her own right.
Welch said in an interview with CNBC that Gen Z — those born from mid-1990s to early 2010s — isn't afraid of unemployment like previous generations. The NYU professor said that she learned of the term "funemployment" from students in one of her MBA classes and that it represents a major change in how young people view work.
For the uninitiated, "funemployment" refers to the concept of employees who have been laid off taking the time between jobs to enjoy life, even vacation.
The term has taken off on TikTok in recent months amid the mass layoffs in tech.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this month, Welch questioned whether Gen Z's logic is "bonkers or brilliant," adding that her students have taken time between jobs to travel the world, attend Burning Man, and work on improving their mental health.
Welch told CNBC that while Gen Z isn't promoting joblessness by choice, their perspective on the issue has shifted "far away" from that of previous generations.
"It's more of an attitude, which is that 'Okay, I'm not going to be the way your generation was about unemployment,'" Welch said of Gen Z. "'I'm not going to be scared. I'm not going to be frantic. I'm not going to lose my mind about it. If I'm unemployed, I'm unemployed. I'm going to have some fun. I'm going to have a great life. And I'll go to my next job when I get my next job. But until then, I'm going to enjoy it.'"
The NYU professor added that the concept isn't tied to a strong job market. Members of Gen Z take a more short-term view on their future and don't feel as beholden to their employers, Welch told CNBC — which, ironically, could be an effect of her late husband's impact on the business landscape.
"They don't trust them," Welch said of Gen Z's relationship with employers. "They don't believe, 'Okay, I'm going have a job with this company for the rest of my life.' They think: 'We're going to be together for as long as we're together, then I'm going to be funemployed, and then I'm going to move on to my next engagement.'"
Welch also added that is has also become "very rare" for her students to openly seek out jobs solely for the money and that many of them say they want to have "lives of impact." She did concede, however, that some of her students are "getting a lot of help from their parents" and that many of them will eventually go into consulting roles where they will make $200,000 a year.
Welch did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
Welch is one of several people to point out that the younger generation has taken a different stance on the job market. Earlier this month, billionaire John Catsimatidis said that young people are "too busy on TikTok" to work hard enough to grow their careers.
An expert previously told Insider that the increasingly common refrain that younger generations are lazier and more entitled is just another "generational effect" or form of "back in my day." However, Gen Z has indicated they're more concerned about work-life balance and less willing to put up with a toxic work culture. In 2022, a survey from the World Economic Forum found that about half of Gen Z workers would quit their job if it negatively impacted their work-life balance.
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Source: Business Insider
