Gen Z: Steering the Future of Workforce

Gen Z: Steering

the Future of Workforce

In its latest report Upwork uncovered fresh insights on how Gen Z is shaping the future of workforce – bringing unique perspectives around skills, flexibility and the type of work arrangements they want.

Here are their main findings:

Gen Zers are more likely to work for companies that engage knowledge freelancers: Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Gen Zers say they work for a company that uses freelancers; this compares to 67% of millennials, 58% of Gen Xers, and 53% of baby boomers.
Younger generations are more likely to engage freelancers in the future: 65% of Gen Zers and 78% of millennials say they plan to use more freelancers over the next five years than they do today.
Gen Zers recognize that freelancers are part of a full talent strategy: In fact, 61% of Gen Zers believe that using freelancers is a very effective lever for building talent pipelines, which compares to 47% of millennials, 35% of Gen Xers, and 37% of baby boomers.
Gen Zers plan to keep remote work around: Nine out of ten Gen Zers and 82% of millennials said they are much more likely to redesign work toward remote as a key recruiting lever. This compares to only 71% of Gen Xers and 59% of baby boomers.

Why this shift in the future of workforce? Gen Z seeks:

🎯 Passionate work
🛤️ Control over personal career paths
⏳ Flexibility in schedule

For them, freelancing helps meet these goals!

Additional insights showed:

27% and 29% of Gen Z and millennial freelancers create influencer-styled content.
46% of Gen Z believes freelancers are cost-effective; 33% said freelancers provide a higher quality of skills and 38% of Gen Zers said they have more confidence in a freelancer.
Gen Z professionals are fastest to reskill for a new hard skill (like learning the latest coding language). It takes them on avarage 3.6 months, while the rest of the generations believed it would take at least 5 months.

In a nutshell, Gen Z is leading change, promoting flexible, passion-driven work that breaks away from traditional norms.

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