More than half of Gen Z don’t want to be middle managers

In fact, 72% of the youngest generation of workers say they’d rather progress in an individual contributor role than become middle managers, according to the recruitment firm Robert Walters.

Although just 16% of the 3,600 Gen Zers surveyed said that they will avoid middle management at all cost, it’s clear that the majority of young people today aren’t keen on the idea of managing others.

Over half of Gen Zers expressed that they don’t want to be middle managers, as part of a trend that has been dubbed ‘conscious unbossing.’

Even the 36% of respondents who said they do anticipate stepping into a managerial position at some point in their careers, admitted they don’t actually want to. 

Gen Z would rather be their own boss

It’s not that Gen Z workers don’t want success—they’d just rather it didn’t come with the responsibility of managing others.

Lucy Bisset, a director at Robert Walters, said that Gen Z prefers to bring their “whole self to projects and spend time cultivating their own brand and approach, rather than spending time managing others.”

A clear example of this is the rise in young people ditching the corporate rat race to become their own boss—or an influencer. 

According to LinkedIn, the second fastest-growing job title among Gen Z grads right now is “founder.”

Meanwhile, separate data shows that more than half of Gen Z say they would become full-time influencers if they had the opportunity, and the percentage has only gone up in surveys dating back to 2019.

“My generation don’t want to go work a consulting or banking job. They don’t even want to be an astronaut anymore,” Steven Schwartz, the Gen Z founder and CEO of the multimillion-dollar marketplace Whop previously told Fortune.

“They want to make content online, they want to find customers online… Being educated with more information about what people can do, why would they want to do something that isn’t the most elite experience and the most fun for them?”

They’ve witnessed millennial middle managers get burned out—and then fired

Really, it’s hard to know whether Gen Zers would actually turn down management roles. With the oldest of the generation turning 27 this year, many won’t have been offered the opportunity to step up yet—but it’s hardly surprising they’ve been put off. 

Having joined the world of work during tech company’s quest for “efficiency,” Gen Z has repeatedly been sent the message that middle managers are disposable.

At Google, where 12,000 managers lost their jobs last year, workers have been told it will be harder to get promoted into management roles going forward. Meanwhile, Meta CEO Zuckerberg said that “flattening” its internal hierarchy was core to its restructure last year. He credited Elon Musk as the source of inspiration behind having “fewer layers of management.”

In fact, middle-management positions accounted for almost one-third of layoffs in 2023, Bloomberg found, up from 20% in 2018—and the “great unbossing” trend hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down.

Last week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said he wants to “increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15%” (by cutting the number of managers at the tech giant). 

What’s more, even middle managers who haven’t been laid off are opting to walk out of the role.

Earlier this year, a global study found that 75% of millennial managers feel overwhelmed, stressed, and burnt out. As a result, many are eyeing the exit and looking for non-management gigs.

Is it any wonder that when Robert Waters asked young people why they’re turning their noses up at middle management jobs, nearly 70% responded: “Too high stress, low reward.”

“Those new to middle management experience a steep step-up in workload, further expectations to be ‘always available’ to those they manage, as well continuing pressure to hit their own targets,” Bisset explained.

“It’s clear how these roles can prove overwhelming and deter many from taking on the extra responsibility.”