Young workers are actually more exhausted by their jobs than older employees

Many employers probably assume that younger workers have more energy than their older colleagues, theoretically making youngsters more productive employees. But a recent survey of over 10,000 laborers found more people under the age of 45 (43 percent) say they are exhausted at work than those over age 45 (35 percent). The least exhausted workers are those over 60.

The researchers point to the changing nature of people's working lives. The human lifespan keeps increasing — and therefore so do the number of years individuals spend in the workforce as retirement costs add up. That longer working life is dismantling the "traditional three-stage life of full-time education, full-time work, and full-time retirement"; it rarely all happens quite so separately or in that exact order. Now employees of all ages are embracing "a multi-stage life that blends education, exploration, and learning, as well as corporate jobs, freelance gigs, and time spent out of the workforce."

That blending of life stages leads to more intergenerational overlap and interaction, with work behaviors and attitudes becoming more "age agnostic." Old stereotypes don't really apply anymore, if they ever did. "When corporations believe that older workers invest less in their knowledge [...] and are on a path to physical decline and exhaustion," the researchers say, "they make the wrong decisions about whom to select, promote and develop, and whom to retire."

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