Millennials don’t want to quit. They want to get laid off

The job market is tough right now: AI résumé filters, the rise of ghost jobs, and waves of industry-wide layoffs. Many workers cling tightly to their jobs in this environment, a phenomenon known as “job hugging.” 

But a surprising number of mid-career millennials aren’t scrambling to avoid redundancy. Instead, they admit they’d prefer an external push out the door because the alternative—voluntarily navigating a chaotic job market—feels far too risky.

And experts say it’s a trend that should leave the cohort right below millennials worried.

A recent survey of 2,000 Gen Z and millennial workers in the US by online education platform ELVTR found that 37% of millennials are dissatisfied with their current roles, and 55% feel unsettled in their careers. Nearly six in 10 said they hoped for an external excuse to leave a job they felt stuck in, such as being laid off.

Roman Peskin, ELVTR’s CEO, calls it “career dysmorphia”: Jobs no longer deliver the stability or upward mobility that they used to. On top of that, many young people have high levels of student debt gathering interest in a world where the cost of living is still rising, making traditional milestones, like homeownership, increasingly out of reach.

“We sold them a career vision which they probably aren’t going to get,” Peskin continues. “They’re more willing to afford the thought of, ‘I’m going to find something else, but I can’t really afford to pull the trigger myself’.”

Having millennials secretly wishing their jobs would disappear is a warning sign to Gen Zers. They’re entering a workforce where almost every industry is being reshaped by AI and instability, and where getting hired and building a meaningful career may be far more difficult than they thought.

Feeling stuck in a collapsing career pyramid

Many millennials essentially feel stuck, unable to quit, but unconvinced that staying will provide the future they were promised. On social media, this malaise is being dubbed the “Great Millennial Career Crisis.” 

Jessi Jean, a content creator who talks about her career pivot at age 35, described it in a TikTok at the end of last year. She said millennials in particular were sold a version of success that “doesn’t exist anymore.”

“We’re told, go to school, pick a responsible career, work hard . . . if you climb the ladder, you’ll definitely be rewarded,” she said. “Buy a house, get married, have the kids, and then you’re going to feel fulfilled.” But many who followed that path encountered recessions, skyrocketing student loan debt, high housing costs, and now, rapid AI advancement. 

“Now technology is taking out entire job markets,” Jean said. “So I think so many of us are realizing that our parents’ dream isn’t ours.”

This tension suggests the career ladder itself isn’t working—with millennials watching it collapse from the inside.

The end of trial and error

For decades, corporate structures operated like pyramids. They found their best people through the trial and error of hiring broadly at the bottom, training and testing them, and promoting the strongest performers. That way, if you hired ten graduates, you only needed one to emerge as a future leader.

But that structure is rapidly changing, with young talent facing a “jobpocalypse” once they graduate. AI is reshaping the bottom rungs of the career ladder, with companies including PwC and IBM warning that automation is shrinking entry-level corporate roles.

HR software company Avature’s recent AI impact report, which surveyed 180 HR, talent acquisition, and talent technology professionals across industries worldwide, found that 76% of respondents believe AI will significantly reduce hiring, creating what it called an “entry-level squeeze.”

Avature’s CEO and founder, Dimitri Boylan, tells Fast Company that many of the company’s customers, which range from Apple to Xerox, believe this pyramid “is not going to be in existence in the future.”

Companies can no longer afford experimentation, so they need to be far more precise in selecting junior hires from the start, meaning more intense recruitment processes for junior roles.

Even those who do get hired may find there’s less tolerance for mistakes. The old system allowed young workers to learn on the job and grow into management, but an AI-augmented workforce may offer far less patience and room to improve.

“It’s a compounding problem,” Boylan says. “The generation that’s coming into the workforce right now, the 18- to 25-year-olds—this is going to have a very big impact on them.”

‘Midlife crises now arrive at 25’

Ella Robertson McKay, managing director of the NGO for young leaders One Young World, agrees that young people are facing multiple stressors in their lives and careers. But she also points to their adaptability and digital fluency as strengths.

“I have no concerns about the leadership caliber amongst Gen Z,” she says. It’s just about teasing those out, and that may mean restructuring a new pipeline altogether.

Boylan says it’s up to HR to understand how the architecture within their organizations is changing and move people in the right directions—though it will take some time for the best route to become clear.

“They have a lot of figuring out to do,” Boylan says. “But they don’t have enough data yet to do it.”

There will always be ambitious workers willing to push through uncertain times, Peskin says. Top firms will always be willing to pay for top talent. But that divide is widening, and there’s no guarantee of job security in any industry.

“It’s becoming more of a law of the jungle,” Peskin says. “Midlife crises now arrive at 25, because disillusionment comes much sooner.”

Millennial workers fantasizing about being laid off could be written off as burnout, but it signals more than that. It’s a bright red flag for those looking to break into their chosen industry. 

While millennials are secretly hoping to be pushed from a crumbling career ladder, Gen Z may discover it’s not waiting for them at all.

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