Alexander Griffiths

I find articles like this hilarious. They're written as though there's this thing happening that we can't explain. Look at the data... quiet quitting is particularly pronounced among Gen Z and younger millennials. Then look at the backdrop to their careers. These people have watched their futures being spent on bailouts, lockdowns and furlough. Even if you work extremely hard and earn promotions (which is far from guaranteed), wages in the UK are so crap, and the cost of living so high, that the rewards often amount to very little. The extra pay can be negligible. The extra effort and responsibility are not. And if you've worked hard, trained and made your way up the greasy corporate pole, there's a good chance you've watched entry-level wages creep ever closer to yours. You might reasonably be asking yourself why you bothered in the first place. Since the pandemic began, the National Living Wage has increased by nearly 55%. If you're someone with years of experience, training, progression and hard work under your belt, and your wages haven't kept pace, why wouldn't you question the value of all that effort? The incentive has been inverted. This is wage compression, and we're now witnessing the second- and third-order effects governments seem so oblivious to. When the financial reward for taking on more responsibility diminishes, so does the incentive to do it. And this is what's happening. People are moving the dial they actually have control over… how much they give a shit about their job. And I don't blame them. I think people are also starting to realise that much of the reward for their hard work is swallowed up by the ever-growing, increasingly wasteful blob that is the British state. It's like having someone sitting on your shoulders, stealing half your food, getting heavier by the day, and repeatedly slapping you around the face as you try to go about your life.