The nuanced relationship between young people of generation Z — those born between 1996 and 2010 — and the job market has already become the subject of heated discussions around the world.
The debates have already given rise to trendy terms, such as quiet quitting, rage applying and job hopping.
Together, the elaborate words seek to synthesize certain patterns of behavior that younger people demonstrate in the job market, but, in fact, they only display a sudden change in manners and patterns.
The distance between the desires and objectives of young people from generation Z and the feedback offered by the market causes many professionals to distance themselves from traditional corporate life.
A survey by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) indicates that 8 million young people between the ages of 18 and 24 are running their own businesses.
A recent survey by corporate benefits startup Caju, in partnership with consultancy Consumoteca, with young people from generation Z in Latin America, showed that 54% aim to have their own business and 10% aim to become independent professionals.
Meanwhile, only 19% said they were thinking about working at a company that offers a career plan and benefits.
If, on the one hand, the search for flexibility scares young people away from corporate routines, on the other, it awakens a growing desire to become leaders in their own careers, thus fueling the entrepreneurial drive.
Currently, having your own business is the dream of 77% of young people belonging to this generation, also according to the Caju/Consumoteca survey.
For Alessandro Saade, executive superintendent of Vocational Social Education (Espro), an entity focused on training and inserting young people into the job market, traditional education today does not include specific subjects capable of preparing young people for a reality that escapes the traditional job market.
“Today the teaching model serves to create a workforce, not to train entrepreneurs”, says Saade, who is the author of books on entrepreneurship designed for distribution to primary and secondary school students in the public school system.
Saade is also the founder of the Empreendedores Compulsivos platform, aimed at training Brazilian entrepreneurs through education and training through courses, mentoring and lectures.
From the perspective of enabling opportunities for Brazilian entrepreneurs, Saade points out that attracting young people to this universe depends, to a large extent, on actions to support specific training that emerge from the beginning, that is, even during basic education.
To overcome this gap, the topic is covered transversally in free training courses and in theoretical training for young apprentices.
In Espro’s preparatory courses, for example, not only practical concepts and technical skills are taught, but also so-called soft skills, such as emotional intelligence, citizenship and basic management principles.
Attracting young people to entrepreneurship
New motivations
Reducing the gap between young people and entrepreneurship, he states, also depends on creating alternative paths and encouraging opportunity, rather than necessity.
“We see young people entrepreneurship out of necessity, and not necessarily out of vocation. He seeks to escape his corporate career and also avoids working in an informal business. And every time this happens, there is a great chance of it being more intense and perhaps going wrong, as there is no structure”, he says.
At the head of Espro, the executive seeks to change this reality through training specifically for socially vulnerable young people. Every year, the entity trains around 40 thousand new students.
Have good references
In addition to the change in motivation to open your own business, Saade highlights the importance of references in the entrepreneurial process. For him, young people often lack examples of people with successful entrepreneurial journeys in their social cycle.
“The example inspires. We have to invest in communicating these examples and understand that they are an important source of motivation”, he states.
In the case of socially vulnerable young people, whose entrepreneurial vocation often comes from necessity, the reference is even more relevant.
“For them, this context of entrepreneurship based on market opportunities is completely outside the reality they are used to,” he says. “We need to show young people that, if they want, they can — and that this is not limited to financial or social issues.”
Paradigm shift
The process of entrepreneurship goes through countless trials and errors. Therefore, there is a need for a profound behavioral change, says Saade.
Considered “difficult to work with” and a challenge for the management of 68% of companies, according to research by EDC Group, young people from generation Z must reflect aspects such as resilience and willingness to take risks, leaving their comfort zone, he assesses.
For him, there is a challenge of changing mentality, especially with regard to how to face mistakes and frustrations.
“I understand that young people have this point of attention, because they get frustrated very quickly, and this is a risk for an entrepreneur”, he says.
“Young people need to understand that it is always necessary to take a step forward, and in entrepreneurship this is related to risk and the need for progression”, says Saade.
Give access to tools
Providing conditions that facilitate access to tools and the conditions for a business idea to prosper is vital for new generations to put their desire to undertake into practice.
In practice, access to simple tools for management, execution and creation of a business plan is enough, in addition to contact with mentors willing to support the success of a small business.
Saade also highlights the need to create an ecosystem outside the world of startups, something that can demystify the idea that young entrepreneurship is limited to the creation of technology companies.
“We need to create this ecosystem where young people can receive the information, support, methodology or financial resources to grow. With this, anything he wants to launch will have support and paths to get there.”
It is in this context that the support of large companies and class institutions and associations is inserted. With specific programs to encourage entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial education, from courses to project financing, ideas developed by new generations tend to gain visibility — and therefore, greater chances of getting off the ground.
A recent example of this approach was a free training in partnership with the Brazilian Banking Association (ABBC), which encouraged young people from São Paulo to create a project with social impact and an innovative entrepreneurial nature.
The result was an exclusive fashion e-commerce platform that sells clothes for people with disabilities. With the institutional support of Espro and more than 120 financial entities linked to ABBC, the project — among many others — can come to life.
(Text by Maria Clara Dias)
