Young employees are reporting such poor mental health that having a job now offers no greater sense of wellbeing than being unemployed, according to new research.
A working paper, Rising Young Worker Despair in the United States, by economists David G. Blanchflower and Alex Bryson and published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, examined more than a decade of federal health data and found a steep rise in what it calls “mental despair” among workers under 25.
The authors said the traditional link between employment and happiness has broken down for the youngest cohort, with job satisfaction now on par with that of those out of work. The findings suggest that changes in workplace culture, technology and expectations have combined to make early employment far more stressful and less rewarding than in previous generations.
The youngest cohort’s wellbeing collapse
Drawing on data from the Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance System, which surveys about 400,000 Americans each year, the researchers tracked how many “bad mental health days” respondents experienced in the past month. They then constructed a measure of mental despair that compared different age, education and employment groups.
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Their analysis found that while older workers continue to report relatively stable wellbeing, despair among those aged 18 to 24 has surged. For the first time, employed young people are as unhappy as their unemployed counterparts. The pattern, which began after the 2008 financial crisis, has accelerated in recent years.
Blanchflower and Bryson wrote that the deterioration was particularly severe among women and less educated workers, while older age groups have seen an improvement in reported job satisfaction.
Intensification and loss of autonomy
Bryson said one explanation was that work itself has changed, with young employees facing heavier demands within the same hours. He told The New York Times that employers might not lengthen the workday, “but the amount of work expected in each hour is intensifying”, leaving staff feeling they have “no job control”.
He described job control as “a fundamental tenet in terms of job quality, the idea that you feel that you have some degree of autonomy over what you’re doing rather than just being directed as an automaton”.
The rise of digital surveillance, algorithmic hiring and performance-tracking systems has also made many workplaces feel dehumanising. A 27-year-old former employee of a US exhibition design firm told the Times she quit her job because she felt “hyperscrutinised and undersupported”, explaining that managers expected her to “do six jobs in a 40-hour workweek” with “mediocre benefits and little to no professional growth or training”.
The paper’s authors noted that loss of autonomy and constant measurement can erode mental wellbeing even in well-paid roles. When each action is monitored, opportunities for creative thinking and informal collaboration shrink, replacing trust with surveillance.
Economic insecurity and shifting expectations
Blanchflower and Bryson also pointed to a deeper change in how young people perceive work. They said today’s workers entered the labour market after years of insecurity, seeing their parents endure layoffs and gig-style instability. Many now face the same precarity in an economy that prizes “flexibility” over permanence.
Bryson said younger employees may also expect more happiness from their jobs than earlier generations did, and are disappointed when reality fails to match the idealised images they see on social media. Yet he stressed that the data show a structural shift, not just a matter of attitude: “The workplace is markedly worse.”
The authors linked this decline to “the Great Recession, the pandemic, and the rise of artificial intelligence and remote monitoring”, which together have intensified the demands placed on employees while reducing their control over work processes.
Practical steps for HR leaders
The findings signal a major risk to retention and productivity. If employment itself no longer guarantees better wellbeing than joblessness, engagement and motivation may continue to fall. Experts said organisations need to focus on job design that restores autonomy, mentoring and purpose to entry-level roles.
That could mean reducing surveillance, improving manager training and ensuring that early-career workers have clear paths for progression. Attention to mental health support and workload expectations is also vital.
While the research focused on the United States, its conclusions will resonate in the UK, where employee wellbeing and retention have become central HR priorities. With younger staff entering a digitalised workplace that often prizes metrics over meaning, organisations face a challenge to rebuild trust and purpose in work itself.
