What America’s youngest workers want from jobs: CNBC survey

Young Americans will play an important role in shaping the workplaces in the coming years, and a new work carried out by Generation Lab for CNBC is taking a look at how they feel about work-life balance and corporate culture.

A note finding: young employees have returned to business sites and no problem with that.

A little more than half of the respondents (52%) says that they are now at work “every day”.

Most of the internal numbers rise to the unified 86%, including four days a week (21% of the participants) and within three days (15%).

For the majority of young workers, distance from remote flexibility is not made in resignation – they say that being in the office for three to four days a week is fair for them.

Seventy -six percent of the respondents “ideal” as they want to be at least three days a week, he said.

Questionnaire It was realized by Generation Lab via E-mail between 2 April and 2 May, and includes close to 18,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 34, who are currently registered for higher education (two years, four years and technical college) or graduated in the last four years. Generation Lab is a data intelligence company specialized in the examination of trends between young people.

Only 9% of the respondents said that the second most important problem in deciding where the ability to work remotely will work. Thirty -six percent of the “career/skill development” as the biggest priority after the money, while 27% “company and team culture” is second for compensation, he said.

Loyalty to corporate employers will have to be gained loyalty

Although he is happy to return to his workplace, the loyalty of young workers will have to be won by employers. Only 7% say that they are “determined to stay in a company for long distance”, while only 16% say they want to invest in a long -term investment in a company’s success. However, considering the right career development opportunities, 46% of the participants will remain “they want to grow in the company, but they may think of external opportunities.”

Young generations are willing to work long hours to move forward, but they have limits. When asked for a request for work, he said that almost one -third (32%), except for the limits of your standard responsibilities, was the best way to distinguish themselves. However, more than half (56%) said that they will do it, and they said that they value the “but ruthlessly” and “work-life balance.”

In the last years of autonomy, even though the young workers want a lot, they expect their managers to take time to help their careers progress in their careers. The majority (64%) says they want regular feedback from their supervisors:

• Daily feedback: 5%
• Weekly feedback: 28%
• Monthly feedback: 31%

Only 12% of the respondents said they wanted to get news from their supervisors once or twice a year.

Young employees say that (62% of them have received “the best face -to -face feedback”, e -mail, text or loose, and many of them want feedback from more than one source -39% “more than one person and perspective”.

Generation Lab also destroyed the participants to see which large companies “associate with non -ethical behavior or negative impact”.

A few major technology companies have progressed badly to this question. Tesla (68%), Meta (64%) and Amazon (61%) All of the participants are perceived negatively by more than 60%.

Boeing was 61% and more than 60% of the survey viewers were the only largest company.

Three major technology companies have worse reputation among young Americans. Exxon Mobile (51% of them see the oil and gas company negatively).

Some of the latest generation of hottest technology companies in the Silicon Valley have relatively low reputation scores compared to many companies: Openai (43% negative) and palantir (49% of them see negative).

“A few years ago Tesla, Meta, Boeing and Amazon would be on the most preferred list,” Gerus Beschloss of Generation Lab CEO. He said. “This may show that the communication mechanisms of these companies cannot stop the perceived bad news.”

Tesla example can be the most unique. “There is a great story to tell Tesla’s product, but the perceptions of Elon Musk’s participation in politics were not positive for the brand.” He said. “But if Musk decides it, he probably focus on the goodness of the task.”

I want to keep Sayi at work, but I don’t want politics

Since the beginning of the Second Trump administration, the management has targeted diversity, equality and involve programs and has been a later withdrawal among companies that support the recently specified VDI goals. This does not fly with most young workers and the survey shows that they will not support institutional employers withdrew.

The majority (67%) said at least some of the companies that continue their initiatives “strongly support”, while 15% said they prefer to eliminate “Dei” or “preferred to scal it”.

However, the majority of the participants (58%) said that they prefer to avoid it when it comes to “discussion of politics in the workplace”.

Economic, business fears rose

Trump management tariffs and more tariff threats make many economists and investors concern about slowing down and dismissal in economic growth. More use of artificial intelligence by employers Entry level workers’ job opportunities weighing And professional trust level. While the latest national employment data remained intact, these fears are reflected among young workers.

He said that they were “a little anxious” or “very anxious” about a stagnation that may affect business expectations, close to three quarters (72%) of the respondents.

Beschloss, “Many smart young people follow what business leaders say. He said. “This age group grew up during the Covid economy and in some cases during the great recession in 2007. Legitimate tensions,” he said.

“Currently, young people see the symptoms of an economy struggling in their daily lives – finding a job, difficulty to talk about higher prices and tariffs.

In the case of finding a job, most of the participants use LinkedIn (63%) and indeed the second place (58%), then handshake (37%).

According to the place where young workers are looking for career advice, they keep him close home: 81% said they started with the mother or father.