Gen Z workers are nearly twice as likely to take sick days when they don’t need them, compared to their counterparts age 55 or older.
Just over 80 percent of workers under the age of 25 said they had taken a sick day in the past year even though they were not too sick to work, compared to 43 percent of workers aged 55 to 64.
And almost 40 percent of under-25s admitted to calling in sick on five days when they could have been working in the past year – compared to just one in 10 older workers, according to the Center for Social Justice think tank’s Merlin Strategy online survey.
Generation Z is known for being less committed to their work than older generations and investing less in traditional methods.
A 2022 survey of job seekers found that the top priority for Gen Z workers was salary, compared to millennials who were more focused on career advancement and personal development.
And earlier this month, research showed that almost half of people between the ages of 18 and 29 were experiencing a so-called quarter-life crisis.
Researchers from the University of Greenwich said such a crisis was a “turning point” that lasted several years during which life was “noticeably more difficult, stressful and unstable than normal”, and then asked if they were affected by it.
About 14 percent said they struggled with adult independence and 18 percent said they were in crisis because of uncertainty about their future opportunities.
Young workers were much more likely than their older colleagues to get sick if they felt well enough to go to work, research shows
Study leader Professor Oliver Robinson said: ‘We’re talking about a midlife crisis, when people start to question their lives… and can make big decisions like changing careers or getting divorced.
‘There is also a later life crisis that older people feel around retirement and when their children leave home.
‘But the quarter-life crisis comes at a similar time of transition, when young people are also feeling ‘left out’ from opportunities such as jobs, and worried about the future, or ‘locked in’ to choices they have already made that may be the wrong ones.
“They’re trying to figure out who they are and often have to deal with relationship problems and divorce.”
According to the CSJ survey, reported by The Telegraph, almost 80 percent of under-25s said being ‘too tired’ contributed to taking unnecessary time off, compared to half that number among workers aged 55 to 64.
And just over half of workers under the age of 25 said social reasons, such as late nights or a hangover, had played a role in taking time off ‘sick’, compared to 19 per cent of their older colleagues.
One of the key issues for Gen Z workers is housing issues, with nearly two-thirds of people in their early 20s living with their parents last year, according to the Resolution Foundation.
According to the latest official figures, unemployment among 16 to 24 year olds stood at 16.2 percent, as young people sent dozens of job applications in vain.
According to the Office for National Statistics, almost a million young people were unemployed in the three months to June, when Alan Milburn published his interim report on those not eligible for education, employment or training (NEETs) in May.
Mr Milburn found that young Neets are more likely to be economically inactive than the unemployed, amid rising levels of health-related inactivity due to anxiety, depression or neurodevelopmental disorders.
And he said he rejected “sometimes cruel” myths about a generation with no interest in work, saying Gen Z was “not lazier” but rather “different in ways that have material consequences.”
