- Gary Vaynerchuk said on TikTok that companies need to court Gen Z with better pay and career growth potential.
- He said Gen Z has more avenues than ever to make money on side hustles.
Entrepreneur and internet personality Gary Vaynerchuk thinks companies need to step up their game.
He said as much in a recent TikTok video, when asked about the "quiet quitting" trend. Sometimes called "acting your wage," the concept involves doing your job as written, for the pay you receive, and no more. It's a practice that's seemingly as old as employment itself, but illuminates how workers are seeking better work-life balance and reshaping their vision of a 9-to-5.
Vaynerchuk, an early investor in companies like Facebook and Uber, says that a focus on quiet quitting ignores the main problem for businesses, which is that young people can get paid better elsewhere so they're "never applying in the first place."
"Companies are going to have a tough time getting people in for under $100k when there's so many goddamn options for these kids to make money on the internet," he said.
The mindset behind quiet quitting is the one that has fueled the Great Resignation and unionization organizing across the United States over the past two years. Workers have continually voiced that they believe they deserve more — whether that involves better pay, better working conditions, or not spending extra hours of their workweek feeling like their time is being wasted.
In particular, Gen Z, the oldest of whom are 25, is the generation most likely to switch jobs and land the biggest pay increases when they do, according to a report from the Bank of America Institute and data from LinkedIn provided to Insider's Madison Hoff in June. 65% of Gen Zers said that they planned to leave their jobs this year, according to one February report, for instance. And 71% of 18 to 24 year old remote workers in a Pew Research Center survey reported leaving or considering leaving if they had to return to the office.
Even as the labor shortage starts to recover, companies are still vying for the attention of workers, and express worry over the long-term effects of quiet quitting. But Vaynerchuk says that it's a misplaced anxiety.
He said that younger people have more options than ever to make money "selling stuff on Facebook Marketplace or eBay, making Google Adwords, doing small brand deals on TikTok." This shift, according to Vaynerchuk makes working at a company for less seem unappealing.
'These kids are not growing up in the world we grew up in'
Not everybody can be an influencer, but it's true that making a lot of money via brand deals and sponsorships has become a reality for more young people thanks to platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Etsy, and Poshmark.
More young people are working for themselves these days. About 60% of teenagers are more interested in starting their own business instead of working a traditional job, according to a March survey of 1,000 teenagers. And the US' independent workforce has risen by 34% since 2020, a 2021 survey of 6,240 people found, with younger workers and women making up a large share of the increase.
"These kids are not growing up in the world we grew up in," Vaynerchuk said. "We shit on Gen Z for being entitled and lazy, and what they're being is thoughtfully understanding of their options."
Vaynerchuk points out the unique position that Gen Z holds in terms of online earnings, even as their general financial straits pose a contradiction. They have more student debt on average than millennials, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, even though millennials still make up the bulk of student borrowers. Gen Z also has less of a savings cushion to expect in retirement than older generations. One Bank of America Research report found that the pandemic would affect Gen Z's financial and professional future in a similar way to how the Great Recession influenced millennials.
But at the same time, Gen Z sets trends in everything from consumer habits to working habits. Vaynerchuk says that the youngest adult generation is milking that for all it's worth, and that it's down to business to keep up with them.
"We as companies are going to have to come up with concepts that enable these youngsters to make a bet worth taking," he said.