Gen Z and Millennial Workers Are Losing Career Ambition—Here’s Why

A career coach has found the culprit behind rising workplace disillusionment felt by many millennial and Gen Z workers, naming the COVID-19 pandemic as the trigger for a mass loss in professional ambition.

Caroline Hickey, based in Bristol, England, was not expecting her TikTok video on the subject to go viral when she uploaded it to the platform on November 24 last year. But with over 115,000 views, her message has struck a nerve among young professionals grappling with a growing sense of corporate despondency.

Hickey addressed her audience directly in the short clip, asking them: “Do you think it is a problem that I am just not as ambitious about my career as I used to be? I used to be obsessed with this idea of getting the big job, climbing the ladder, being the boss—and now frankly, I just don’t care.”

Her candid remarks reflect a broader cultural shift that has gained traction among millennial and Gen Z workers in recent years. Fueled in part by the global upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, this change in attitude suggests a reprioritization of work-life balance, financial stability, and personal fulfillment over traditional career hustle.

“I see in my clients and my research that post-pandemic a lot has changed for young professionals about how they feel about their careers,” Hickey, who delved into the topic during her master’s degree at the University of London, told Newsweek. “I looked at whether we can categorize the COVID-19 pandemic as a ‘career shock’ and explored the impact that career shocks can have on how we feel about work.”

“Work was seemingly reprioritized following the pandemic, as young professionals chose to pour their energy into side hustles, travel, slower living and connection—among other things—over climbing the career ladder.”

Hickey’s TikTok video resonated widely, in part because it encapsulated sentiments that many young workers have been struggling to articulate.

“All of the participants [in her 2023 study] felt that after the pandemic, they were no longer as interested as they once were in progressing upward in the world of work,” Hickey, who holds a postgraduate degree in career coaching from Birkbeck, University of London, told viewers online. “Instead, their focus had become more on gaining a sense of stability and control in their lives.”

The pandemic’s effect on the workforce is often discussed around the rise of remote work policies, but Hickey argues that its deeper legacy lies in how it reshaped young workers’ emotional and mental relationship with their jobs.

The “Career Shock” From COVID-19

“Throughout the pandemic, a lot changed in the way that we worked—work-from-home arrangements, increased financial pressures, furloughs,” Hickey said. “These have all been well-documented to have had big influences on how we worked during that period and how we continue to work today.”

However, the shift goes beyond logistics. The career coach’s research points to this “career shock,” a sudden, external event that dramatically alters an individual’s view of their professional life. As young workers faced uncertainty, upheaval and perhaps the loss of loved ones during the pandemic, many began questioning whether the traditional career ladder was even worth the climb.

“My research and the commentary that followed the TikTok video nods, in my opinion, to a shift in priorities that we are seeing amongst the younger demographics of our workforce,” Hickey said. “It will be hugely interesting to see how this continues to develop and the impact that it has in the years to come.”

The career disillusionment that Hickey’s followers have resonated with is not occurring in isolation. Studies show that millennial and Gen Z workers have been reporting rising rates of burnout, anxiety, and workplace dissatisfaction in recent years.

A 2023 health survey from Cigna revealed 98 percent of Gen Z workers are actively dealing with symptoms of burnout.

Following efforts to rebuild after the pandemic, a 2022 survey by Deloitte found that 46 percent of Gen Z respondents and 45 percent of millennials felt burned out due to the pressures of their working environment. The same report found that 44 percent of Gen Z workers and 43 percent of millennials have rejected job opportunities because of worries about how it may affect their mental health.

Even the American Psychological Association says that workplace-related stress is a major contributor to increasing rates of anxiety among young professionals, with the pandemic exacerbating pre-existing concerns. Hickey sees all these findings reflected in her clients’ experiences.

“When I am working with clients who echo the sentiments of this research and feel that they have fallen out of love with their careers, the biggest thing we do is create the space for them to reconnect with the things that matter to them,” she said. “When we have been working with one picture of what we think our career is going to be, and that picture suddenly does not feel as aligned as it once did, it can be hugely destabilizing.”

To navigate this shift, Hickey focuses on helping clients redefine success on their own terms.

“We spend time working out what our new career picture needs to look like and what goes into that,” she added. “There are so many ingredients that go into making a fulfilling career.

“It is OK if sometimes you need to change a few things to make it work better for you.”

Hickey’s own career trajectory mirrors this sentiment. After building a successful career in advertising, which she left after working her way up to the level of an account director, she realized that the traditional corporate path was not sustainable for her long term.

“I really struggled to find tailored career support for young professionals and found the experience incredibly challenging,” she said. “This did not sit well with me, and I realized that I was not alone in simultaneously feeling dissatisfied in my career and feeling stuck in it.

“It was through that realization that I began to explore career coaching.”

Hickey retrained as a career coach in 2020, amid the height of the pandemic, and now works full-time helping others navigate similar transitions. Her social media presence, which she started working on in 2022, has been an extension of this mission, aiming to “shine a light on the career struggles and changes that young professionals face.”

For some, the shift away from climbing the corporate ladder represents a healthier relationship with work. Hickey emphasized that stepping away from ambition does not mean abandoning meaningful careers.

She said: “The main purpose of my work is to help young professionals feel less alone and in control of their careers.”

For many viewers, the career coach’s viral video was just that—a small, empowering reminder that it is OK to fall out of love with your job and want something different in a post-pandemic world.

Have you had a workplace dilemma? Let us know via life@newsweek.com. We can ask experts for advice, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.