Gen Y Wants to Be Good Corporate Citizens
When I interviewed college recruiters for The Leisure Economy, I heard one message repeated over and over: the grads they were trying to bring in wanted to know about the values of the companies they were interviewing with. Good corporate citizenship is all the vogue these days with new grads, and it is affecting their decisions.
This piece from a website called “Corporate Citizen ‘07″ makes the same point, but suggests that the boomers started at the same idealistic point, then got sidetracked by life, and that the same could happen to the Gen Ys. I’d differ a little on that analysis: what I think got the boomers sidetracked was the economy. After all, when the first wave hit the workforce in the late 60s and early 70s, the layoff culture had not taken route. It probably felt okay to talk about all the ideals they wanted from their employers. Once the unemployment rate started to climb into uncharted territory (as it did post 70s oil shock, then again in the 80s) and layoffs and recession were everywhere - well, they kind of shut up and kept working.
Gen Y could get trapped into some down cycles, and there may even be a recession in the offing. I doubt though, that we’ll see the same stratospheric climb in the unemployment rate that shifted attitudes so radically before. With the Fed and other central banks more cognizant of the need to cut rates quickly and sharply, the old style business cycle swings are not as likely (remember that even post-9/11 we didn’t get a full recession). Time will tell whether that will give Gen Y the luxury of staying idealistic even when they have mortgage payments looming.
