We knew it was coming but now its official 40 per cent of Gen Z – that’s people born between 1997-2012 – are considering opting out of the workforce to live on benefits.
I mean the actual bloody cheek of it. These are people who’ve never contributed a penny to the State in which they live yet for some bizarre reason they think they’re entitled to live off it and that it, literally, owes them a living.
And guess what the reason is they’re citing for this idleness – yep, you’ve got it “mental elf.” For huge numbers of Under 25’s the reason they say they can’t work is their mental health. And while some are undoubtedly suffering with serious mental health issues, the majority are not.
How much longer are we going to let young people get away with this nonsense – that they cant work because they’re anxious and stressed – and be rewarded for their idleness with benefits?
Because its not just their parents who are to blame for this, its schools who have bred the resilience out of young people to the point they have to be given trigger warnings about a bad word in a book they’re studying or be shielded from stories or situations that might upset them. They cant be scolded any more, told they’re wrong and they can’t be criticised. Which is maybe why so many fare so badly in the workplace.
No wonder they get stressed when they’re thrown out into the real world where there are no trigger warnings for real life and work situations.
Young people have been so molly-coddled at home and at school that they they’re incapable of dealing with every day stress and anxiety and have convinced themselves it’s a genuine medical condition that exempts them from working.
And it’s easy for them to not work when we have a government that literally throws enough at them in benefits so they don’t have to.
But even those who do suffer from genuine medical anxiety are also to blame. They too must be made to understand that being stressed or anxious doesn’t entitle them to opt out of work forever. Mental Health conditions, like most others, are treatable. And if people suffering with cancer can work then so can people with anxiety!
The only reason 40% of young people are considering opting out of the workplace is because they can – because this idiotic, over generous Government allows them to. If there were no benefits for stress or anxiety ( and there never used to be ) these people would have no choice but to go to work and learn how to manage their condition.
I keep reading stories on social media about young people who’ve had a job, got fired (probably because of their attitude and because they put no effort in ) and they say they’re never going to get another one. Sorry but there should be no choice about them having to go back to work.
And where the Hell do they think the money is coming from to pay for their life of lying around? I’ll tell you – it’s coming from the rest of us who do manage to drag our backsides out of bed every morning and who also suffer from stress and anxiety but still manage to put in a day’s graft.
“I’m too stressed,” they wail “ I’ve had so many rejections,”.
Well that’s what happens in the real world when you go for a job – one person gets it the rest are rejected.
When I got my first job on a newspaper I wrote 40 letters before I eventually got one. And Yes the eight months it took me to get that job were debilitating, depressing, humiliating and Yes, stressful not least because my Dad was on my case every day telling me I HAD to get a job.
And while I was desperate to be a journalist I knew that whether or not I succeeded in breaking into journalism I’d HAVE to get some sort of job because my parents were never going to allow me to live off them or the State.
That’s because they had a work ethic and they had pride and they drummed both into me and I don’t see either of those things in many young folk today.
What I see is sheer entitlement – young people believing they can live in a country, do beggar all for it yet still be paid by the State for doing nothing.
They need to be reminded that benefits are supposed to be a safety net not a lifestyle choice.
What the Hell is wrong with these people that they imagine doing nothing for the rest of their lives and being paid for it is an option? asks Carole Malone
Getty (Pic posed by models)
You don’t just decide to opt out of the workplace because it’s a bit hard. What the Hell is wrong with these people that they imagine doing nothing for the rest of their lives and being paid for it is an option?
Trouble is too many have been over protected and over indulged by their parents, in school and by the State which has resulted in a generation of young people with no resilience, no gumption and no ambition. If they get a job that’s the least bit tough or tiring – which most jobs are – they just walk away from it.
I wonder if they’ve ever stopped to consider what life without a job, a career or a purpose would actually be like. Do they understand that’s likely to cause them far more psychological damage than any mental health condition they imagine they have?
The fact is anyone who can work – should work end of story. No, make that anyone who can work MUST work – and if they don’t NO Benefits.
Yet, still there are those in this farce of a Government is fighting tooth and nail NOT to have our humungous benefits bill cut. They’re perfectly happy to see millions skivving and pimping off the state without contributing anything to it because they’ve convinced themselves everyone is victim.
And its precisely this mindset that has made Gen Z think they too are victims and that if working makes them feel a bit stressy then they shouldn’t have to do it.
Keir Starmer needs to ignore the bleeding hearts and stand firm on this one. We simply cannot have a whole generation of perfectly able young people believing they don’t have to work.