Gen Z’s vanishing white-collar dream

FOR more than 35 years now, middle-class parents — especially in India's bigger cities — have sent their children to college to get professional degrees that would fetch them decent white-collar jobs. That used to be their golden ticket to affluence. And it did pay dividends for most of this period.

Young people with MBAs or degrees in finance or computer science sailed into corporate offices and began earning more than their parents ever did. Indeed, our booming IT and finance industries changed the lives of lakhs of graduates from small towns, as well — people who would have otherwise lived a lower-middle class existence.

But over the past few years, things have turned sour for India's young — what is popularly called Gen Z. Take the availability of white-collar jobs, for starters. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) estimates that the number of graduates seeking employment increased by 74% in the past three years. In the same period, white-collar hiring — according to Naukri's Jobspeak Index — grew by a measly 2%.

Even this figure hides the true picture of what is happening to Gen Z. Now, the earliest someone enters a white-collar profession is when they are 20 years old — most start working when they are 22. By the time they are 25, their parents and relatives start pressuring them to get married and then have kids of their own.

That's when student life suddenly gives way to marital domesticity. And it also increases the need for money. So, it is common for young white-collar professionals to begin shopping around for better jobs by the time they are nearing 30.

What is happening to these people today? CMIE's estimates tell us that during January-March 2023 and the same period in 2026, the number of young people of 20-29 years of age, who either have work or want to work, has increased by 12%. In the same period — according to Naukri's index — white-collar employment opportunities for those with 0-3 years of work experience have increased by just 3%. This is still respectable compared to hiring among those with 4-7 years of experience. Here job opportunities have fallen by 15%!

Much of this would have happened in the IT and finance industries, which is precisely what most of Gen Z trained for in college.

There's been a sharp decline in hiring in these two sectors in the past three years — Naukri's data shows that job opportunities in IT software and software services have dropped by 8%, while they have fallen by 17% in the banking and financial services sector. Anecdotal evidence tells us that the young entry-level employees and middle managers have borne the brunt of this 'jobapocalypse'.

What is interesting is the trend among the senior-most employees. White-collar hiring activity among people with more than 13 years of work experience has increased by 32% in the past three years. In fact, even this is skewed towards those with more than 16 years of experience, where it has risen by a whopping 40%.

This is a direct result of the invasion of AI into the workplace — especially in tech, finance and consulting. AI agents are reducing the need to hire freshers; if there are fewer entry-level employees, then a company no longer needs that many team leaders and middle managers to supervise them. As AI flattens the competition in non-specialised functions, companies are trying to differentiate themselves through business strategy. The net result is that firms across the world are cutting their junior- and mid-level workforce, while they are trying to get the best senior executives.

There is a corollary to this story — top executives have seen huge jumps in their salaries, while those in the bottom two layers of the corporate hierarchy have seen their pay hikes collapse.

In India's IT services industry, for instance, entry-level salaries have stagnated for the past decade, while median salaries for those with 5-10 years of experience have grown at a snail's pace. The CEOs in some companies, on the other hand, earn 500-700 times the median pay. And this is true not just for the IT sector, but for most of India Inc.

This puts a different perspective on wage bills in India's top companies. Between 2022-23 and 2025-26, the salaries and wages of the BSE 500 companies — the 500 most valuable listed companies in India — rose at an annual rate of 7.6%, while their net profits increased by 18.7% per year.

If you account for the fact that much of this hike would have gone to the senior-most managers, one can estimate that the increments for most employees would have barely matched inflation. For the youngest lot — the Gen Z employees — pay hikes are likely to have been lower than the rise in their cost of living.

It is true that there has been some recovery in white-collar hiring in the past one year, but all reports suggest that new jobs are coming at much lower pay. Companies cut their salary bills by sacking people in 2025, and are now replacing some of them for less pay. So, while the intense job crisis of 2024-25 might be easing a bit, Gen Z is getting jobs that cannot sustain the lifestyle their parents gave them.

I personally know of young people who still have to take money from their parents to meet their monthly expenses even after working for more than two years. The previous generation did the opposite — they sent money home to their parents or bought them expensive gifts to make their lives better because they were earning good salaries.

This is not just a matter of finances. Young people are losing their agency and autonomy because of financial dependence on their parents. They are being forced to postpone plans to get married and have children. This crisis has rid them of hope, and the will to engage with life. Their world has been turned upside down.