The boomers' kids get a job
Their resumes are gilded, but the `echoes' may be a drag on the economy
Tricia Robinson has met the future of America's workforce, and she likes what she sees--sort of. Robinson, the vice president of marketing at an Atlanta software developer, says today's rookies are smart and ambitious. They've mastered the Internet, collaborate well, and aren't afraid to stand up for an idea. They seem like dream employees.
But Robinson could do without their constant job hopping, their stubbornness, and their thin skins--traits that don't make them the most productive workers. "My parents gave me a very, very strong work ethic--that the person you have to blame is yourself when things don't go right at work," she says. Of the current crop of new workers, well, "I don't know that they've necessarily gotten that."
That's the ambivalent verdict on the generation that is the most watched demographic to hit the workplace since its baby boomer parents showed up at the office in bell bottoms more than two decades ago. These workers in their early 20s, who are the leading edge of an 80 million-member generation known as echo boomers--aka millennials or generation "Y"--are beginning to take their place in America's factories and offices.
Are you experienced? But if they are to live up to expectations and help keep the economy purring, they will have to disprove one of the basic laws of labor economics: Young workers, on average, are unproductive. "They may be the most productive 20-year-olds ever on the planet," says Toni Horst of Economy.com. "But they're still not going to be as productive as someone who has experience." Of course, their parents were young once, too. The boomers, because there were so many of them, were terrible for the economy: When they entered the workforce, productivity rates dipped to half their earlier levels. Rising demand for everything from housing to food to gas helped drive up inflation as output stagnated. If the echoes drag down job productivity, the economy could face another decade like the 1970s with lots of young workers looking for low-paying jobs in no-growth industries. The echo generation can ask its boomer parents how that felt. "They're facing tough times," says Horst.
The current economic slowdown is already hurting the youngest workers. According to Economy.com, workers ages 20 to 24 have dropped out of the workforce this year faster than any other age group while workers 45 and over are actually entering. The reason? Companies are laying off their newest--and most unproductive--workers first.
This development isn't exactly what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had in mind when he predicted that the economy's recent gains in productivity would continue. He has argued that rising worker mobility, greater use of technology, and higher education levels--traits attributed to them--will give American companies an edge over foreign competitors for years to come.
American business has a lot riding on how this workforce spends its paychecks. "They're coming into the market with a lot of money," says Steve Sturm, vice president of marketing for Toyota USA. And a cottage industry of workplace consultants has raised expectations with books like Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation.
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