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.
But America's employers may have to brace for a letdown. Although the echoes learned to be big spenders before they could spell the word "allowance," they picked up some awful financial habits in their teens: Teachers report that their high school students are taking on staggering amounts of debt; that could crimp spending when they're older.
Chairman Greenspan's faith may be misplaced, too. As the oldest echo boomers--those born in 1977 and soon after--have entered the workplace, there are signs they may not be as productive as the experts had predicted. They apparently have novel notions about the workplace, shaped by their peek through the keyhole at the economy; for a decade all they got to see was the dot-com boom. According to dozens of workplace consultants, echo boomers may boast all the technological savvy and self-confidence in the world, but they have managers complaining of problems rare just 10 years ago: no-shows on entry-level job interviews. Requests for promotions after only months on the job. Quitting without giving notice. Demands that every aspect of the job--even menial tasks--have meaning.
Kate Heneroty left her last job because it was too dull. She now works at Socketware, an Atlanta software developer. She is talented and driven. ("When I was 22, 23 years old, I wasn't as bright," says her boss, Tricia Robinson.) But Heneroty landed the new position because, as she tells it, a recruiter caught her when she was having a bad day. She fired off her resume and jumped. Management consultants caution that this may become an enduring trait of echo boomers: Their never-ending search for the ideal job may make them as fickle as generation X-ers, who famously abandoned the pretense of the lifetime company- employee relationship. "[Echo boomers] are loyal, until the day they leave," says Bruce Tulgan, who cowrote Managing Generation Y. "And that makes them very high maintenance."
Spoiled rotten. That's not all that makes them a management headache. Thanks to the involvement--some say indulgence--of their parents, echo boomers grew up blaming teachers, coaches, and others if they didn't get the best instruction--and the best grades, says Ron Zemke, coauthor of Generations at Work and president of Performance Research Associates. Rich Clark, general manager of Atlanta Fish Market, says the restaurant's young workers "critique everything you do, because they have had a lot done for them." Managers, he says, end up apologizing and finishing the job themselves. "If a guy has a terrible night because you didn't follow through on his training, you have to say, `Let's work on it, it's my fault that you're having these problems.' " Just how coddled are the echoes? One employee's father called Stacie Connerty, 29, human resources director for the chain that operates the Fish Market, to negotiate his son's salary. "He told me, `I'm just trying to get him a good deal.' "
But not all echo boomers fit a neat stereotype. Sokha Son, 20, a field mechanic at the Port of Seattle's auto repair shop, skipped college and plans to stay on the docks until he retires. But he's not just clocking in and clocking out. "I didn't know about fixing cars and trucks when I got there, nothing," he says. Son, who was born in Cambodia and raised in the States, goes to classes two nights a week during the school year to catch up.
Others are proving they can be just as loyal as employees of past generations. Every so often, job recruiters come after Laurie Bertner, 23, a healthcare services industry analyst at T. Rowe Price in Baltimore. She doesn't plan to leave anytime soon. "This job is all about merit and working your butt off," she says.
Still, the cooling economy may force echo boomers to work harder and, perhaps, expect less. Corrie Sepcich, 24, a flight instructor at DeKalb-Peachtree airport in Atlanta, is slowly building up enough flight time so she can get hired as a pilot for a small airline. "With our age group, we think we should have it right now," she says. "But it's not an immediate-gratification type of job."
Delayed gratification won't come easy for the echoes. They grew up in two decades of nearly uninterrupted prosperity and economic growth. Echo boomers "have been told all their lives they could do what they want," says Tulgan. "They've been watching the gold rush all their lives." Then the gold rush came to an end. The echoes may not produce another.
Youth comeback
Twenty-somethings will soon occupy a bigger share of the workforce.
20-to-29-year-olds (as a share of total labor force)
Projected echo boom
[Chart data are not available.]
Are you an echo boomer?
A quick guide to America's three largest generations:
Baby boomers Generation X Echo boomers
Year of birth 1946-1964 1965-1976 1977-1997
How many 77 million 44 million 80 million
Most significant
popular technology Television Computer Internet
Defining medical event The pill AIDS Stem-cell research?
Most significant death John Kennedy Princess Diana Columbine students
Emblematic diva Barbra Streisand Madonna Britney Spears
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
With Susan Brenna and Ingrid Lobet
This story appears in the September 3, 2001 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.