From permanent contracts to ‘what now?’
There was a time when landing a permanent job felt like unlocking the happy ending to adult life: a stable salary, paid holidays, seniority and an existence mapped out with almost surgical precision until retirement. However, Generation Z seems to have completely lost interest in the model that, for decades, functioned as a universal symbol of success and stability.
And no, it’s not that young people no longer want to work; they’re simply no longer willing to do it under the same rules. After growing up through economic crises, inflation, frozen wages and increasingly normalised instability, the promise of a “job for life” no longer sounds reassuring — it sounds almost like science fiction. As a result, many now prefer to build careers that are more flexible, dynamic and less linear, where changing direction is no longer seen as failure, but rather as a far more coherent way of navigating today’s working world.
Working for a year and then moving on
According to a recent report by Shakers, younger workers stay at the same company for an average of just one year before looking for a new professional challenge. However, reducing this phenomenon to simple impatience would be missing the point entirely. For Generation Z, changing jobs works almost like an accelerated master’s degree: it allows them to gain experience faster, expand their network and build skills in record time. In a labour market where everything changes constantly, standing still is beginning to feel far riskier than moving forward.
The logic, therefore, is no longer about staying put, but about evolving continuously. While millennials still attempted to follow the traditional corporate ladder — that fantasy of eventually earning a corner office after surviving endless meetings for a decade — Generation Z operates under far more fluid and flexible codes. Today, changing companies is no longer interpreted as instability, but rather as a sign of adaptability and even strategic intelligence within a market that increasingly rewards the ability to reinvent oneself.
The rise of freelance culture
At the same time, the number of self-employed workers in Spain has continued to grow over recent years, particularly among younger and more digitally driven profiles. Far from viewing freelancing as a temporary solution, more and more workers prefer building project-based careers rather than remaining tied to a single structure for decades. In fact, Spain’s Special Regime for Self-Employed Workers closed 2025 with more than 37,000 new registrations and now exceeds 3.4 million self-employed professionals across the country.
Beyond the numbers, the phenomenon reflects a clear cultural shift: independence is no longer seen as a fallback option, but as a far more flexible way of understanding work. Particularly within sectors linked to technology, communication and creativity, many young people would rather move between projects, collaborate with different brands and manage their own schedules than submit to the rigidity of a traditional work model. And although stability still matters, for much of Generation Z freedom and the possibility of constantly reinventing oneself now carry far greater weight.
From job hopping to the Hollywood model
Within this new working logic, concepts that until recently seemed like passing trends have begun to define an entire generation’s relationship with work.
- The first is the now famous job hopping: constantly changing companies in search of better conditions, greater freedom or environments that better align with personal values. For Generation Z, staying in the same place for years is no longer automatically associated with stability; in some cases, it can even feel like stagnation.
- Alongside this comes the well-known quiet quitting, a kind of silent rebellion against hustle culture in which workers stop wearing exhaustion like a badge of honour and simply limit themselves to doing what they are actually paid to do.
- Then there is the so-called Hollywood model, an organisational system directly inspired by the film industry. Just like on a film set, companies create temporary teams to develop specific projects and, once completed, each professional moves on to the next collaboration.
As a result, the traditional concept of a permanent workforce is beginning to dissolve, giving way to professionals who move constantly between projects, brands and opportunities — almost as if LinkedIn had quietly transformed into one endless casting call.
Is Gen Z rejecting work or simply rejecting certain conditions?
Reducing this entire phenomenon to a generational whim would be not only unfair, but also deeply simplistic. The reality is far more complex. The labour market has changed dramatically and younger generations are simply learning how to navigate those new conditions. Salaries no longer guarantee immediate financial independence, companies demand near-constant availability and work-life balance has stopped being a luxury and become an absolute priority. That is why Generation Z does not seem obsessed with “working less”, but rather with understanding what they are working for and under which conditions they are willing to do it.
At the same time, work is no longer perceived solely as a tool for economic survival, but also as a matter of identity, self-expression and even lifestyle. Perhaps that is where the real cultural shift lies: stable employment no longer automatically represents success, happiness or personal fulfilment. For many young people, repeating the same routine for decades feels more suffocating than comforting, while independence offers something far more appealing — movement, continuous learning and the possibility of constant reinvention. This does not mean romanticising instability, but rather understanding that modern stability can no longer rely solely on the promise of a permanent contract. Because if work once existed to build a secure life, today it must also fit into a life that actually feels worth living.
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