Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game
After effects of Dot-com crash, Financial Crisis and Covid-19 pandemic
Why Gen Zs are the worst hit generation since World War 2
Gen Zs might be the worst hit generation in the modern times.
Most of them are the way they are because of the cards they were dealt with by the modern world.
Who Is Generation Z (Gen Z) ?
Generation Z (often called Gen Z, Zoomers, or post-millennials) is the second-youngest generation, with Millennials before and Generation Alpha after.
Gen Zers were born between the late 1990s and early 2010s.
Why Gen Zs are the worst hit generation since World War 2
Like millennials in the past who saw the Dot-com bubble burst (2000–2002) and Financial crisis of 2008,
Here’s a list of items Gen Zs have had to face since 2019:
- Covid-19 era: 2020 stock market crash, Post-COVID stock market boom.
- Ukraine-Russia war and Israel-Gaza-Iran war.
- Global high-inflation, high fiscal-deficit environment, mega-stimulus packages injected by government with high printing of money.
- Crypto boom & busts with many companies like FTX, Vauld, BlockFi, Gemini trust, etc. declaring bankruptcy.
- Collapse of Banks like First Republic, Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank, etc including merger of stressed Credit Suisse with UBS.
- Rise of Right-wing polarization across Europe and the world, similar to what happened nearly 100 years ago with Nazi Party (Germany) and Republican Fascist Party (Italy) after the Spanish-flu of 1918.
- High unemployment, high education cost and student loan debt, less job security and high lifestyle expenses.
A Generation of Smartphone addicts!
Youngsters today saw most of the world through their smartphones.
Their opinions, agreements and world-view were formed online using Instagram, Whats App, Twitter, YouTube, Tik-Tok, and Facebook.
I don’t understand why old generation puts the blame on Gen Zs for what they believe in and how they behave online.
Most of them never saw an era without Smartphones or PCs and never lived in a time where a corporate job meant lifelong service for a single company.
They didn’t get to choose the period in which they’re born, neither did they have the free-will like previous generation which didn’t have smartphones.
Blame the people who created social media, their algorithms and smartphones apps because they should’ve been the ones to fix these problems.
How financial crisis changed everything about corporate world?
In the world of finance, 2008 will be remembered as a period of deep pain and fear around world as we saw the devastating effects of what greed and exuberance can do.
We had Lehman Brothers, a 150+ years old investment bank fall due to Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and Subprime Mortgages.
Millions of people got affected due to the crash in Wall Street and around the globe:
- You had Citi selling Smith Barney, Citi’s global private wealth management unit to Morgan Stanley’s Global Wealth Management Group,
- Merrill Lynch got sold to Bank of America (BoFA),
- Warren Buffet coming in and injecting billions into Goldman Sachs to prevent their Bankruptcy, and
- Government intervening by providing billions of dollars via Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funding to bail-out numerous banks.
Out of these there were many companies which couldn’t be saved. Thousands of people lost their jobs and the trust at Corporate America was at an all-time low.
After effects of financial crisis in the modern world
Having witnessed the Dot-com crash, Financial crisis and Covid-19 epidemic, one thing the world will always remember is how fast things change:
- Job security goes down the drain.
- People usually will try to save themselves first.
- Millions of people lost their hard earned money, homes, jobs and investments due to such events.
- How major culprits like board members, politicians, directors & highly paid executives avoided trial & imprisonment.
- Even after taking correct measures, recovery took a lot of time.
- Employees are less trustful of their Employers & absence of right compensation, well-being & benefits affects their tenure at a company.
Conclusion
Gen Zs have seen the previous generation struggle and they themselves have faced such issues.
They are a lot smarter about how they approach their life, where they work, how long they work and how they see the world.
Most of them are determined, work hard and persevere when right opportunities present themselves with the right risk-reward ratio.
Gen Zs are a lot more aware about when they find they are being taken advantage of, when it is time to leave a company, what all skills actually matter, the right compensation for their work and their ultimate goals in life.
Yes, online activism & meeting online friends is a part of them because they were born during the era of Twitter & Tinder.
Most of them never had to walk out of their homes to meet their friends, to play, communicate or even buy vegetables. So, they’ve had a lot less personal interaction than any previous generation.
Despite all these challenges, you have a generation which still believes and keeps it’s head high when tackling problems.
So, just be a little kind to them because the world hasn’t been.
