Tough job market? Gen Z responds with gig work and entrepreneurship
The class of 2025 entered a tough job market this summer, but some members of Generation Z are adapting.
For some young Americans, a majority of whom are entrepreneurial-minded and believe traditional 9-to-5 schedules are “outdated,” unconventional work is a solution to getting ghosted by employers. Some pick up multiple jobs and record their day-to-day for TikTok, hoping to monetize their routines further. Others turn to platforms that help them get gig work like Thumbtack, Fiverr or Taskrabbit.
“I literally applied to like 85 actual 9-to-5s in all different types of industries,” said Nola Rodgers, 22. “None of them came through. Taskrabbit had the only people who actually responded to me.”
The platform saw a 25% increase in sign-ups in July, said Christopher Ager, Taskrabbit’s chief commercial officer. Though some users view these platforms as a way to earn some extra cash on the weekend, Rodgers and others are using them as a launch pad into entrepreneurship and a way to escape the 9-to-5 rat race.
“Young adults are rewriting the rules of work and embracing side hustles as a sustainable, empowering alternative,” Ager told Paste BN.
How bad is the job market?
At the start of this year, 1 in 5 working professionals who were looking for a job in 2024 were still searching, and 28% of people said the market was so bad they weren’t planning to look for one in 2025, according to LinkedIn research.
Not everyone has the luxury of staying put, particularly if they never had full-time work to begin with. Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z said they were likely to search for a new job in 2025, according to a Bankrate job seeker survey.
The Labor Department’s April jobs report showed 1.7 million Americans have been out of work six months or longer, the most in more than two years. Hiring unexpectedly picked up in June as employers added 147,000 jobs, but only 74,000 of those were added in the private sector. State and local government hiring accounted for much of the rest.
Gen Z's entrepreneur mindset
Rodgers isn't too concerned with who is hiring.
She joined Taskrabbit in 2021 and has made $180,000 since she started assembling furniture, mounting TVs and organizing people’s homes. In 2022, she launched her own website offering similar services.
This year, she said that each month before taxes she’s bringing home $3,000 to $3,500 through Taskrabbit and about $2,000 through her small business.
Without a college degree, student loans or a boss, Rodgers has no regrets about taking an unconventional path compared with that of her peers.
“I've been in the workforce 4½ years more than them. They’re just now trying to find jobs because they went to college, and I already have an established business,” Rodgers said. “So, I would say it worked out.”
Within the next five years, Rodgers wants to start making custom furniture to expand her business. And she’s not alone. A 2020 WP Engine survey found 62% of Gen Zers planned to start or possibly start their own business.
'I don't want anyone to tell me how to do my job'
Kevin Johnson, 24, is among them. Like Rodgers, he started on Taskrabbit in 2019, mainly helping people move. Today, he said, he makes $2,500 to $4,000 a month before taxes.
It was enough for him to purchase a pickup in cash. He has two goals in mind after he wraps up his associate degree: saving for a down payment for a home and opening his own auto shop.
“I don’t think you need a 9-to-5 to be stable,” Johnson said.
The Class of 2025 agrees. Monster’s State of the Graduate Report released earlier this year found 67% think a 9-to-5 schedule is outdated and 64% think the five-day workweek is antiquated. More than half said working full time in an office and the concept of having to relocate for a job are also outdated, the report found.
Johnson prefers working for himself, anyway: “I don’t want anyone to tell me how to do my job.”
Reach Rachel Barber at rbarber@usatoday.com and follow her on X @rachelbarber_