As generational change occurs, labor productivity – and motivation to work hard – seem to be declining, which mystifies economists, now guessing about the role of technology, training, macro-policies, capital, job quality, wages, and wonky data. It might be simpler.
Even with freer markets, better technology and training, less government, more capital, lowering taxes to create better jobs, saving, growth, and reduced debt, the answer may be this: Just teaching the value of hard work.
In the end, people do the work. How they do it is about attitude. With technology, it is people who change tires, clean floors, cook meals, build houses, unclog toilets, make planes, trains, and automobiles go, write software, respond, and prepare.
Maybe we start …with people and our culture’s attitude toward hard work. Each generation lives different experiences, which shape their attitude to work. The Silent Generation (pre-1946), Boomers (1946-1964), X Generation (1965-1980), Millennials (1981-1996), and Z youngsters (1997-2012) see things differently.
As our workforce composition changes, attitudes do too. The Silent Generation knew the Depression and WWII and valued work by itself. The Boomers were their children. Generation X was independent, less institutionally anchored, but alert.
Millennials, now 20s to 40s, are different, digital, technology-dependent, less focused on history, what made their lives possible. Many miss work’s goodness.
Finally, Generation Z is impatient and sees digital mastery as the fast track to riches. Often, they lack important historical, strategic, and intergenerational context, where their world came from, the risk, sacrifice, and work that made their world.
Splaying these groups on a chart, the 2025 workplace looks like a whale with no tail, low on the left, hump in the middle, sloping to zero on the right. From left to right, five percent will be under 19, 15 percent ages 20 to 24, 18 percent 25 to 29, 19 percent 30 to 34, 19 percent 35 to 39, 18 percent 40 to 44. That is the hump.
The last eight columns slope right, 17 percent of those working will be aged 45 to 49, 16 percent aged 50 to 54, 16 percent aged 55 to 59, 13 percent aged 60 to 64, 8 percent aged 65 to 69, 4 percent aged 70 to 74, two percent aged 75 to 79, one percent aged over 80.
What does this mean? Several things. More than 93 percent of the workforce will be under 44 next year, 56 percent – more than half – under 34, and more than one-third under 30.
Going forward, the attitude of young Americans toward work, the pride they have in it, and the value they see in it, will matter for all of us, not least their own futures.
While the Silent Generation saw value in hard work, getting stronger physically and mentally, feeling confident because self-reliant, and grateful for peace and work, they populate the workplace in single digits now.
Boomers and X’ers, while numerous in their heyday and workers are also tapering.. Like their parents and grandparents, many valued “blood, sweat, and tears,” being a Renaissance person, handy and smart, able to fix things yet professional; they took risks, failed, learned, succeeded, paid dues, and liked work.
What remains is the new culture, one that often forgets – never knew – how good it is to work hard, just gratitude for the chance. They miss the value of a hard thing, aiming high, failing, getting up, aiming again, failing again, getting up again – the work ethic and how it teaches strengths, limits, and appreciation.
What many in the workforce miss, while good with iPhones, apps, and instant information, is what came before, why others have no interest in victimhood, entitlement, social media, “likes,” “dislikes,” “followers,” being witty, no self-pity.
Most of the young have never seen war, deprivation, or global depression. They do not know what they could, that work is good, emboldens a soul, teaches confidence, how to meet adversity with perseverance, the value of doing things with your own hands, and how that produces ingenuity and resourcefulness.
In sum, hard work is good, just that simple. If we teach that, while others push dependence, ease, and entitlement, those who follow will prevail, America will.
The process is simple. As St. Francis of Assisi famously wrote: “Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” You do not know what lies within unless you try.
As Albert Einstein added, hard work produces surprises. He had his surprise and his principles. “Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
But Thomas Edison put it most simply: “There is no substitute for hard work.” America’s young workforce can again be the best in the world if we teach them about hard work.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
