Gen Z Is Already Afraid Automation Will Eat Their Jobs

A center - aged man , hold a peter from the car store , looking forlorn and wistful . That ’s what we might call the stock image of automation fears . It ’s the picture that adorn the news taradiddle about grim business - personnel casualty forecasts or think pieces about whether the automaton are ‘ come for our job . ’ ( It ’s either that or a threatening humanoid . ) This is who the robot threatens , who is afraid of the robot : older , semi - skilled , in all likelihood uneducated military personnel in the manufacturing industry .

Except it ’s not exactly rightful : Just about everyone , it turn out , is afraid that automation is conk out to erase their job , even the youngest , most starry - eyeball among us . cogitation have shownthat automation has bear upon some of the youngest members of the workforce the most , and a new act of market research reveals that so - called Generation Z is already plenty upset about the phenomenon .

A surveyof 500 18- to 23 - class - old conducted by Lucid Research found that the absolute majority ( 57 percent ) are worried mechanisation will negatively touch on their jobs , and about a quarter ( 23 percent ) of them say that they were seriously concerned about the prospect . ( As always , take this grocery enquiry with a great old cereal of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks — the firm that commissioned the bailiwick is Nintex , a “ provider of workflow automation solutions , ” and one of its suggestions in reply to the data is that its prospective client “ build an empowerment narrative around AI and automation . ” )

Photo: Dan Kitwood (Getty)

A passel of mass lean to sham — and certainly Peter Sellers of enterprise automation tools trust — that young people would be more open to mechanization in the workplace , digital natives and braw - newfangled - worlders as they are .

Other research supports the whimsey that Gen - Zers are yet worried fellowship will deploy automation to erode their job security : Arecent Indeed surveyof 2,000 worker also found that young adults were worried about mechanization ( though not as much as those aged 25 and up).Previous Pew Researchhas launch that after mechanisation hit new workers , they became ( quite intelligibly ) pessimistic about engineering science in general .

view after survey also prove that Gen Z is also more likely to beskeptical of capitalist economy — wherein technical automation must at last be take on to maximise efficiency and minimise Labour Party costs — and perhaps able to name the elementary fact that if a fellowship can automate their line of work away and save money in the process , they in all probability will .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

care of automation is now an ambient fact of life that transcends demographic ; as the surveys show , those vexation variegate slenderly agree to education level and age , but there is a important level of anxiety to be found across the board . Nintex , the automation company , add it up as take after : “ Gen Z — and everyone else , for that matter — take care the potential in AI and automation but require to hump it wo n’t eradicate their job . ” alas , the unsaid reason that most company are assume automation in the first property is to do incisively that , at least to some level . Gen Z — and everyone else , for that matter — recognize this .

They know that for the same reason they know they are on uneven economic footing , to say the least . ( The study collected Gen Zers ’ other economical fear , too , like : “ I wo n’t be able to get a occupation that allows me to support myself financially . ” And : “ My industry will break down as soon as I start working . ” And : “ I reverence I will not be able to make a living with the flying field I ’m entering ” ; “ I ’m apprehensive about not being able to pay off my loans ” ; “ I ’m frightened of a changing economy ” ; and “ I ’m concerned I wo n’t be able to sufficiently support my kinfolk . ” )

Perhaps if Gen Z looked at the generational trends and did not see forecasts like the thick likelihood thatthey’ll be the second coevals to be poorer than their parents , due to widening inequality , the degradation of job quality in sure sectors , and the ‘ uberization ’ of work — and no small part to the fact that automated and semi - machine-driven technologies are send an increasing portion of profits upstream , where they are enjoyed by the upper management and not the middle division — they may have more reason to accept an “ empowerment narrative ” about AI and mechanization .

William Duplessie