Gen Z’s struggle to break into the workforce, dubbed by The Guardian as a “job-pocalypse,” is one of the biggest stories of 2026.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in March that “the class of 2026 could face the highest unemployment in years.” Earlier in the year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that the unemployment rate among workers ages 22–27 had reached 5.6%—the highest since 2014, excluding the spike during the worst period of the COVID-19 pandemic. 15
Moreover, recent data released by the World Bank Group shows the total percentage of young people worldwide aged 15–24 in the labor force plummeted nearly 4% between 2020 and 2023.
These grim numbers reflect Gen Z’s outlook on their careers, which is much more pessimistic than what older generations reported in LinkedIn’s 2025 Workforce Confidence survey.
The conventional wisdom is that Gen Z is having trouble breaking into a job market where entry-level positions are being outsourced to AI. The data suggests that’s part of the problem, but not the full picture.
Here are the main issues Gen Zers are up against right now.