Why young Aussies are walking out of high-paying jobs
Young Australians are less interested in having a long, stressful career as houses become increasingly unaffordable for average-income earners. Australia's median capital city house price is now above $1million, meaning only dual-income couples or individuals on high salaries can buy a home with a backyard. But rather than work harder in a career role to afford a house, Australia's younger workers are less inclined to do stressful corporate jobs, long-term, if there isn't a meaningful reward or a work-life balance, despite there being a cost-of-living crisis.
Jin, 23, is graduating at the end of this year from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Science majoring in data science and accounting. He will start a full-time graduate role in January next year and is bracing for the occasional weekend shifts as he helps prepare financial reports for big firms during the twice-yearly earnings seasons. But he is aspiring for some work-life balance in his twenties, including some travel.
'I do think a balance is necessary - if we don't have the correct amount of sleep or just the correct amount of breaks to take our minds off things, it's just very hard for us to stay focused,' he told Daily Mail. 'I do want to explore the world outside of Australia. I want to see and experience different cultures.' He is also hoping to work reasonable hours so he has time for family and a social life. 'I think I have a nice balance right now, where I spend my time with my family and my partner,' he said. 'Once or twice a year, I strive to take a one-week holiday or go on a break with my family or my partner.'
Jamie MacLennan, the Asia-Pacific managing director of TELUS Health, said younger workers were less inclined to take on stressful roles, despite needing higher pay to cope with the cost of living crisis. 'People are trying to rebalance and balance the work-life component in a world where we're essentially on 24/7,' he said. 'Somewhere along the line, people have got to earn a living, but then the question is - "What's the cost of making that living?" - that's where people are rebalancing.
'You can't quit completely or at scale - there's always going to be an element of people who do that. 'Whether they take the traditional career paths, whether they aspire to those, creates a bigger dislocation.' Mr MacLennan said the mental health effects of Covid on younger people would create succession planning issues for companies in coming years, as fewer of them aspired to be in senior roles.
'We haven't recovered from Covid - our brains have been rewired. There continues to be a mental health crisis - crisis is not an overstated term in Australian society and it's most acute in that younger generation coming through,' he said. 'People have that sense of missing out - they're in a situation where they can't afford to get what they want or they can't afford to live in the environment that they want.'
Stress is now a deal breaker for staff, with recruitment agency Randstad revealing 60 per cent of workers would rather have less stress than more pay. Unbearable demands had seen 40 per cent of workers switch to a lower-paid role.
Amelia O'Carrigan, Randstad's director of public sector and business support, said employers couldn't ask staff to work five days in the office without incentives. 'It's not a complete pull back on flexibility and expect that workers will agree to that. In fact, to completely say - "You need to be back into the office five days" I would say would be a risky strategy,' she said. 'As job confidence starts to return, you'd be at risk of employees looking elsewhere.'
The Randstad survey of 5,250 workers in Australia, Germany , Italy , Japan , Poland , the UK and the United States found stress to be a major issue. Financial concerns are the biggest driver of personal stress in Australia, with 44 per cent nominating it as a problem, a survey of 1,000 people by TELUS Health found. Unaffordable housing was also cited as a driver, with 18 per cent nominating their housing or living situation as a source of personal stress.
While many young people are reconsidering taking on stressful roles, Jin said he would be willing to make sacrifices to one day establish a data-oriented start-up for small businesses, that could use AI to audit their finances in real time. 'If I were to want to live comfortably, or think about having a better life, I would try to branch off into a different industry,' he said. 'If the corporate ladder doesn't work, I'll try my hand with something I like within data science, because I sacrificed it away for stability - I'll try to think about doing a start-up project on the side.
'Earning more money comes with more responsibilities so naturally you come with more stress - probably personally, I think I have pretty good stress management.' 'My goal, before I hit 30, I'll try to get a car that I like, I like sports cars, I want to work towards that. We need goals in life or what are we working for? If we're just working for a living - it's not hard, it would just be very boring.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Demolition work on old Devizes Wadworth site to begin
The partial demolition of an old brewery site to make way for 102 homes is set to begin in the plans, 64 flats and 38 houses will be built at the former Wadworth site in family-run brewery left Northgate Street in Devizes in 2023 after 140 years to move to Folly Road. Wadworth boss Toby Bartholomew dubbed the old site the "heartbeat" of the town. The homes are set to be built around and behind the Grade II-listed old brewery building, with developer Backhouse saying the project would include eight affordable homes. Devizes councillor Iain Wallis said he had hoped there would be more affordable housing built as part of the project but "we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good". He said the plans initially did not have any provision for affordable housing, but the council had worked with the developer to increase this to of land at Backhouse, Stuart Walter, said housing schemes were under "extreme" financial pressure."That is the reason why the affordable homes on this scheme have been reduced."It does not mean we won't be delivering more, and we'll be looking to go to registered providers who'll take on further homes on the scheme," he said. Wadworth boss Mr Bartholomew said investment in the site was needed."It is a very sad moment but also a great moment for the future, that something is going to be done with the site"There is a financial reason for this. It did not make financial sense for us to carry on the way we were carrying on - the investment that would be needed in this site," he said.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Australia's new best performing property market no one saw coming
Australia's most affordable capital city market is now Australia's best performing housing market - with prices peaking for the first time in more than a decade. The aftermath of Covid lockdowns saw house prices surge by double-digit figures in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, as young families priced out of Sydney moved interstate in search of a more affordable place to live. Until early 2025, Darwin home values were still below a 2014 peak, reached during an Inpex liquefied natural gas pipeline construction boom that was followed by a property market plunge. But after recovering gradually since Covid, prices are now soaring in the Northern Territory capital. Investors are now snapping up bargain-priced houses in a small city with Australia's tightest rental vacancy rate of just 0.5 per cent. Cotality research director Tim Lawless said landlord investors were chasing strong capital growth in Darwin, which is still a particularly affordable market. 'Investor numbers in Darwin have absolutely rocketed - they've pretty much doubled over the past year, more than doubled in value terms,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'This upswing in housing values is being driven by investor demand. 'The affordability and the really high rental yields is probably the key thing that is attracting investors; again this is a supply thing - we haven't seen much investment activity in Darwin up until recently so there hasn't been a great deal of new rental supply. 'Whichever side of the book you're looking at, housing values or rental values, they're both rising quite rapidly now.' Prices are also reaching new peaks after plunging a decade ago. 'I wouldn't say they stagnated until recently - they've had a pretty decent upwards trajectory since 2020; it was really, since 2014, they went through quite a decent slump - they fell substantially and then did virtually nothing,' he said. 'The last five years has been catch-up for Darwin - it's a reflection of that affordability advantage that Darwin has built up.' Darwin's median house price has soared by 9.7 per cent during the past year to a still relatively affordable $641,997, new Cotality data for July showed. But in the nearby satellite city of Palmerston, Driver house values surged by 12.4 per cent to $512,921, which is still attainable for someone earning an average salary of $78,567. Unit values in Darwin, however, are still very affordable with a median value of just $390,863, following an oversupply during the Inpex LNG construction build that saw apartment values remain weak. Darwin is still the only capital city market where someone earning less than six figures can buy a mid-priced house instead of just a unit, with banks typically lending owner-occupiers five times their pre-tax salary. Like Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide during Covid, Darwin prices are roaring back to life and reaching new peaks after years of flatlining. The Top End is now seeing the kind of boom that other provincial capital cities experienced during Covid lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne in 2021, when interest rates were still at a record-low of 0.1 per cent. This is despite the Northern Territory having a below-average population growth pace of 1.2 per cent as 2,234 people on a net basis left for another part of Australia. Adelaide was Australia's second best performing market with prices up 6.8 per cent over the year to $895,726 but in the more affordable northern suburb of Andrews Farm, prices climbed by 14.5 per cent over the year to a still cheap $506,610. Brisbane prices rose by 6.7 per cent to $1.02million but in nearby Bundamba, in Ipswich, they rose by 12.6 per cent to $646,332. Perth prices rose six per cent to $869,689 but in the more affordable eastern suburbs, Midland prices rose by 13.2 per cent to a still affordable $637,998. House price growth was more subdued in Sydney and Melbourne, which receive the biggest influx of overseas migration. Sydney values edged up by 2.2 per cent to $1.526million, making it by far Australia's most expensive market. The city's affordable south-west had bigger increases with Bonnyrigg prices rising by 13.6 per cent to $1.158million. Melbourne house prices rose by one per cent to $952,339 but in Frankston North, they rose by 9.3 per cent to $658,157. The Reserve Bank is widely expected to cut interest rates again on August 12, following an inflation drop, and the futures market is forecasting three more cuts by the end of 2025, which would take the cash rate from 3.85 per cent now to 3.1 per cent for the first time since February 2023. Mr Lawless said more rate cuts would see wealthier, inner-city suburbs get the steepest price growth instead of the more affordable, outer suburbs as banks were able to lend more. 'As interest rates come down, it's probably unlocking a bit more credit for more expensive suburbs,' he said. 'They're also the markets where we've generally seen weaker conditions over the past couple of years.'
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Clean energy subsidies should be replaced with ‘market-based incentives' from 2030, Productivity Commission says
The Productivity Commission says clean energy subsidy programs should not be extended beyond 2030, and that 'market-based incentives' should guide investment in the clean energy transition over the coming decades. The commission's interim report on investing in cheaper, cleaner energy and the net zero transformation is one of five which will be released over two weeks and which set out a series of reforms to reinvigorate Australia's productivity. Commissioner Barry Sterland said 'Australia's net zero transformation is well under way'. 'Getting the rest of the way at the lowest possible cost is central to our productivity challenge,' he said. The commission stopped short of repeating previous recommendations for a broad price on carbon. But it advocated for a significant expansion of the safeguard mechanism, which sets emission limits for only the heaviest polluters, by slashing the threshold from 100,000 tonnes to 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. Sign up: AU Breaking News email Chris Bowen, the climate change and energy minister, last week announced an increase in taxpayer subsidies available for green energy projects under its successful capacity investment scheme (CIS). The CIS and the government's other clean energy subsidy scheme, the renewable energy target, do not extend beyond 2030, and the commission argued that the two programs should be replaced with 'market-based incentives in the electricity sector'. The commission also said the implementation of the new vehicle efficiency standard meant federal and state governments should phase out specific concessions for electric vehicles, including on fringe benefits tax, stamp duties and registration fees. A new emissions-reduction incentive for heavy vehicles should also be introduced, the commission said. The commission said it takes too long to develop green energy infrastructure and there are deep concerns that the government will not reach its 2030 climate targets, which include 82% of energy production from renewable sources. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The report called for an overhaul of how green energy projects are assessed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, to allow decision-makers to consider whether a project is important to Australia's clean energy transition. Martin Stokie, a commissioner who is leading the inquiry alongside Sterland, said Australia's 'sluggish and uncertain approval processes are not up to the task' of delivering the huge amount of clean energy infrastructure needed to meet national climate targets. 'Overdue reforms to the EPBC Act would both speed up approvals and better protect the environment,' he said. The environment minister, Murray Watt, is reviewing the act as part of a new package of federal nature laws, which were shelved before the election after lobbying from mining companies and the Western Australian government. The commission also made a series of recommendations to build the country's resilience to the effects of climate change. The interim report called on the commonwealth to lead development of a public database of all climate hazards, and a series of goals and policies to improve the resilience of houses. Notably, the commission backed a climate resilience star-rating system that would reflect the potential damage from climate change. 'People's experience of climate change will depend on the resilience of their home, but most lack the information they need to invest in upgrades,' Sterland said. 'As climate risks intensify, boosting our resilience can lower the costs of disaster recovery and create a healthier, safer and more productive Australia.' The commission will now consult on its draft recommendations before the final report due at the end of this year.
