I ran a successful business for more than 40 years before I was forced to shut it down… here’s why Gen Z are to blame

A motor mechanic has blamed young workers for their sense of entitlement and claims he was forced to close his business because of them.

Dave Lawson opened The Bike Doctor Perth in December 1981, but 43 years later he blamed Gen Z – born between 1997 and 2012 – for keeping his mouth shut.

‘They were spoiled by my generation’ he told the Western Australian.

“We tried to give our children a better life than we had. We didn’t give them the chance to make their own mistakes.”

Mr Lawson said Gen Z turns their noses up at becoming an apprentice because of the low starting salary, but somehow finds the money for expensive lifestyle choices.

“A lot of young people say they don’t have any money, but if you look at their bank statements, they pay $50 to have a hamburger delivered and all that kind of stuff,” he said.

‘That’s where your money goes. You just can’t save money if you screw it up like that.’

Mr. Rawson estimates that in his decades in business he has had only a dozen apprentices, and while some stayed for years, others lasted only a few weeks.

However, they had one thing in common over the years: none of them continued to work in the bicycle repair shop.

Although they are all initially happy to get the work, Mr Rawson said: ‘Within three to six months they are dragging their lips around the workshop’.

“Some people expect too much,” he said.

While money is often a major factor in their declining interest, Mr Rawson said the problems start in schools where becoming a student is not valued enough.

He said students are encouraged to go to college, but they come out with $100,000 in debt, no job and no experience.

He said the problem in Western Australia is exacerbated by the state’s huge and thriving mining sector.

Mr Rawson explained that mining is a ‘very attractive job for young people because they can make the big money straight away’.

Apprentice heavy diesel mechanic Connor Gale, 21, said many people in the industry drop out before they qualify, saying this is mainly down to money and the opportunity to earn more elsewhere in the short term.

“The customer service advisors make more than the technicians with bonuses,” he said.

“So, the way they look at it, why sacrifice four years of damn wages when you could go straight into a service advisor role.”

Mr Lawson said Gen Z turns their noses up at becoming apprentices because of the low starting salary, but somehow finds the money for expensive lifestyle choices (pictured, young Aussies walking on Melbourne’s St Kilda Beach)

Although Mr Lawson lives in Perth, the lack of students is a problem across Australia.

Last week, a construction boss in Brisbane was stunned when his apprentice sent a casual text to announce he had quit.

Scott Challen, head of Brisbane-based home renovator The QHI Group, said he was stunned when he received a short text message announcing the apprentice would not be returning to work.

The text message was along the lines of, “Thanks for the opportunity. Sorry for letting you down, see you later.”

‘We attracted this little boy. He was fantastic,” Challen said Yahoo.

“And then all of a sudden…overnight he pulled the pin without notice and decided he was going to the highway.

‘That flippancy about his own career… he seemed involved, and then suddenly he wasn’t involved anymore.’