Comparing the jobs of our grandparents to the jobs now seem unfair. Back then you can feed a family, get a house, car, and vacations on a single income, with that person working regular jobs and not a CEO or manager of a company. A lot of the jobs then were physical labor intensive. Factory workers, mechanics, even a lot of IT related jobs were simple, like data entry. There were only a few coders if any.
The work environment now is more complex. A lot of work need brain power. Coding and debugging programs, maintaining databases, monitoring and correcting systems. You are doing a lot more work than previous generations, while just sitting in front of a computer. Everything is also faster. When I was working on databases, downtimes should not happen, and if they did, it needs to be fixed in minutes. Issues should be resolved almost instantaneously. The stress of finding and troubleshooting the problem while your bosses, and their bosses are literally right behind you while you work is nerve wracking. I even had on-call support, where I am available for 24 hours and they are free to call me anytime if there are issues. I handled multiple systems so there was bound to be at least one call every time. I then have to work the next day. I think that is where the burn out comes from. Back then once you clock out, everything is done.
I'm not trying to defend the younger generation. I consider myself to be in the middle, and having experienced both sides. I don't think burning out after just entering the work force is agreeable. But saying those old dogs are still learning new tricks are not that accurate. I have worked with a lot of older employees, and their output and performance is significantly less than their younger peers. There are a lot of older generation in managerial and higher work, and they try their best to keep their position, even going for consultation position and pay cut just to keep their job. While it is admirable, it is also preventing those promising younger generation from being promoted. There are very limited positions for officers, and most are taken by the older generation. If you are under a boss who is 50 years old, you'll have to wait 10-15 years to be promoted, because their boss is only 55 and also needs to be promoted.
Apart from the workplace, you then have the salary and inflation issue. You work hard, but it is only barely enough to rent a small apartment. Your parents/grandparents were able to afford their houses with close to minimum wage. Your daily life becomes a cycle of going to work, and sleeping. There is no hope of promotion, your increase of 5 percent per year is below the inflation rate, you can't afford vacations, and the older generation that are living their best life are telling you to just work hard, stop complaining, and multiple back in my days, aren't making things easier.
This is getting long. There are points for both sides, and the debate can be endless. In the end, everyone has problems, and life is difficult. Just got to learn to live through it.
Yes. A lot of these types of jobs are better paid now, yet there aren't the young people to fill them.
Have you considered how many people can do these jobs? Education might have gone up, but IQ is still what it is. The people who are likely struggling in the jobs and burning out, might not be the most suited for the jobs, right?
But, this hasn't been the case for 30 years. I don't think I have been able to "clock out" in the last twenty. The people who are burning out now would have been 5 years old at the time. I think there are more issues ongoing than this, because even though people talk about not being able to switch off, that is not actually the case with the majority of companies and roles. Maybe they need better time management skills and they definitely need better understanding.
At least in Finland, they are begging older people not to retire, because they don't have enough young people coming through. In some cases, they are bringing people out of retirement to take care of things, including some coding jobs, weirdly.
Do you think this was different 40 or 50 years ago?
The conditions are what they are and the attitude that a lot of the young are taking, isn't going to work in their favor. They are cutting themselves off to opportunity and growth.