Half of Millennials are looking to change careers this year

Canadians are a restless bunch. More than half of Millennial workers say they would like to change jobs, start their own business or go back to school this year, according to a new study.

The survey, put together by payroll and human resources-focused ADP Canada, says while 55 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 34 are looking to make a career change, only 31 per cent of other age groups are considering making a move.

Of those who weighed in for the ADP Canada Sentiment Survey, 27 per cent of employed Canadians say they would like to find a new job, 11 per cent say their ambition is to start their own business and a further 10 per cent hope to go back to school.

“We’re also seeing a diversity of ambitions around looking for more money, more responsibility, more training and greater flexibility around how work is done,” says Virginia Brailey, vice president of marketing and strategy at ADP Canada.

According to those polled, 25 per cent are looking for a pay raise, 14 per cent want to take on more responsibility, 12 per cent would like to be promoted and 11 per cent want more work.

But Ann Frost, associate professor of organizational behaviour at the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western says that while there’s certainly been a small uptick in the current crop of 18 to 34 year olds looking to swap careers, it’s less to do with some generational trend and more of a demographic woe.

“My gut tells me maybe it’s a little higher than it was a couple years ago, people were more conservative then, but I think even 30 years ago you would have seen a big difference between the 18 to 34 year old surveyed and the 35 to 55 surveyed,” says Frost. “I think this is not a generational thing – Millennials versus baby boomers or generation X or Y or whatever – this is 18 to 34 year olds from time immemorial.”

She argues that Canadians in the 18 to 34 demographic are just a bit more risk-taking.

“There are very few people at 47 who are deciding, I’m going to go back to college and do this diploma – they’ve got kids, a mortgage, a job they already like and are doing fine at,” says Frost. “It seems to me its in the early stages of careers when people are trying to figure out what skills they need, what they’re good at and they’re going to get that piece of paper to do it.”

Frost is right in that the sense of restlessness and entrepreneurial predilection is status quo for twentysomethings standing at the front edge of life’s milestones. But there’s an element that was missing from past generations working their way through the same spot in their lives – the ubiquity of technology and constant connectivity brought about by the Internet.

Millennials, which at 37 per cent, now make up the largest part of the Canadian workforce, and by 2028 are estimated to comprise three-quarters of that workforce, are living in a society where easing of conservative traditions like “find a stable job with good benefits and a pension” has become “here’s a zillion tools and resources to find and compare career options.”

A Thinkopolis report released by Workopolis in 2014 highlighted the Millennial job-hopping trend, finding that since 1990 onwards, there’s been a growing number of people staying in jobs for less than two years. From 1990 through to 2000, Canadians staying at their jobs for less than two years double from 16 per cent to 33 per cent of employees. Between 2000 and 2014 that number double to 2014.

Demographically speaking, young Canadian may be more prone to job-hopping – but Millennials are better prepared to do it.