Brave new world for employers
Employers will have to work harder to train Generation Z workers because they will have spent longer at school and university, WA's peak business body says.
WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry workforce development services manager Lena Constantine said a "cultural mismatch" between employers and Generation Z's understanding of work etiquette was possible, so bosses would have to invest more time to get graduates work-ready.
"We hear stories of graduates taking their shoes off and sitting on the floor or not showing up and not letting their boss know they're not coming in," she said.
Employers might also struggle to keep the best Generation Z workers because they would be aware of the jobs available globally. "They can see what's happening across the world," she said.
Demographer Bernard Salt predicted Generation Z, those born between 1995 and 2009, would be more practical and realistic than Generation Y, who were indulged more by their guilt-ridden baby boomer parents.
"Gen Y have this distorted view of the world because they've been told they're special from the age of five," he said. He believed Generation Z would be reasonably practical, highly educated, nurtured but less indulged and more connected to reality.
Mr Salt said there were about three million members of Generation Z, which made up about 12 per cent of the population.
They would be the most educated generation but unlikely to leave home until they were 28.
Curtin University professor of health policy Mike Daube said the good news for Generation Z was fewer were taking up smoking, with the number of 12 to 17-year-olds who had never tried a cigarette rising from 30 per cent in 1984 to 78 per cent in 2011. One-third drank alcohol at risky levels and more than a quarter were overweight.
