Recruiters Start Rejecting Gen Z

Gen Z is finding employment doors closing

By 2030, Gen Z will represent 30% of the active population. They are the necessary replacement for any company wanting to stay open. Yet, a growing number of recruiters view them with suspicion: they see them as digital, diverse, sensitive, self-sufficient, and, according to circulating diagnoses, intolerant of frustration. The complaint is not new. What is new is that it intersects with a labor market that offers few advantages to newcomers.

Why do employers distrust Gen Z?

A segment of business owners blames attitude. They argue these young people grew up in controlled environments where they always win or are allowed to win, so when facing reality, their world collapses. The recurring example: 16- or 17-year-olds throwing massive tantrums when losing a football match or card game.

Another reading shares less blame. Working without passion and feeling like the odd one out in the team helps no one, but this was not invented by one generation: it was worsened by excessive phone use and the psychological toll of social media. The 22-year-old did not design the app that consumes their attention.

The uncomfortable truth is that both explanations coexist. Neither clarifies why the same employer complaining about attitude has kept entry-level salaries stagnant for years.

The market faced by hirers: 200 candidates per job offer

Here, the narrative breaks. An employer states bluntly: for an engineering role, 200 people apply. 99% have extensive experience, but as waiters. Of the remaining 1%, almost no one answers the phone—applying for a job is free—and posting that offer costs the employer 300 euros. Of the two finalists, half show little enthusiasm: total, with that salary, they will never buy a house.

Against this backdrop, another view points to volume, not attitude. The argument: Spain has the highest unemployment rate in the OECD, and if precarious employment is included, the rate would soar to 37%. With these figures, newcomers have no choice. They apply to whatever is available.

Why a 25-year-old does not give their all at work

The scenario described in some analyses is devastating. A fresh ADE graduate enters at 25 and discovers they earn half of what a 55-year veteran earns for doing exactly the same job. Dual salary scales are explicit: same work, half the salary, and no real chance of promotion. With that money, they cannot become independent in less than ten years.

Added to this are conditions many companies still defend as if the world had not changed: two hours for lunch, facilities far from public transport, leaving at 7 PM, zero vacation flexibility, and no remote work despite the role allowing it. Some companies have simply stopped wanting to hire under-30s, not because they cannot find them, but because what they offer drives anyone away. The label used for them is 1970s paco companies.

Is Gen Z lazy, or does the math not add up?

The crux lies in the arithmetic. It is understandable that someone reaches 30 with precarious employment, unable to become independent, with no prospects, and gives up. What is harder to digest is giving up at 20. The other side’s quick response: what horizon is offered to 20-year-olds? And here lies the fine detail—salaries, rent, expectations—that each fills according to their convenience.

Underlying this is the question of pensions. A 44-year-old civil servant earning 1,400 euros net per month admits that he and his generation will likely receive no pension, or a token one. When he raises this with peers, the response is the same: that is why he is contributing now. The gap between what is contributed and what is expected to be received is the backdrop to the disconnect.

Brain drain: those who qualified have already left

There is a variable often left out of headlines. A segment of the best-trained professionals has been outside Spain for over a decade. The repeated diagnosis: the country suffers from a brain drain comparable to much more severely hit economies, and those who left, mostly, have not returned. The few who return describe it as an exception, not the norm.

In parallel, demographics work against them. Birth rates are at rock bottom, and those who remain inherit increasing capital—a tourist apartment, stocks, a family business—which allows some to abandon their professional careers. This is not a flattering photograph for either side.

The official diagnosis blames one generation. The market, with its entry-level salaries and conditions from half a century ago, bears much of the blame. And while both sides point fingers, the clock ticks toward 2030, when that 30% of the active population will be indispensable. The analysis stalls there: no one knows what will happen when the generation that currently seems surplus begins to be needed.