Market acceleration, ongoing staff cuts - and gen Z needs to level up
by Mario Peshev, author of The Growth Blueprint. | Originally published on The Growth Blueprint.
Guest post by Mario Peshev, author of The Growth Blueprint. | Originally published on The Growth Blueprint.
Markets are right up after the elections - and so is the pipeline climbing up fast after a few slow months prior.
S&P flies high, so is crypto, the Fed slashed another 25 basis points, and companies are unblocking end of year budgets + there’s positivity in the air for next year. Our CRM is buzzing, and even intros from partners and former accounts are being activated again.
(More detailed stats on the market, as usual, further down the bulletin)
The market is in a better shape - or at least the purchasing behaviors are north. In business, scarcity can freeze trillions of dollars, hence trust and confidence in markets is even more important than the actual P&L.
Forecasting more layoffs
What we do see clearly, though is: B2Bs are reluctant to hire today.
Backlashes and ongoing wars with “Return to office” mandates
Conflicts with talent that made it to the office, but doesn’t pan out (culture, productivity, alignment)
The job market offers a larger pool of candidates, but expectations still resemble the 2021-2022 job market - and that’s no longer what the business is willing to pay premium for
Lack of understanding of AI trends and the new pace at work
Performance productivites with AI augmentation on the job
New disruptive SaaS tools and productized services offering 80% of the job for 10% of the cost
All things considered, there’s a race to the bottom price in software met with a productivity boost exercise for delivering more with less.
As FTEs are failing to adapt for the most part, layoffs will keep happening until the gap between business needs + opportunities and applicant culture + reality check is smaller.
Gen Zs aren’t helping
First of all, I clearly want to refrain from tagging labels and generalizing for the sake of being the grumpy old man in this situation.
Historically, every generation feels the one before them had better job prospects/access to healthcare/real estate and the one coming after is spoiled, not as hardworking, and should push for more.
Still, the longer we live in peace and prosperity, and Maslow’s pyramid of needs is satisfied on every core level - the less young people are eager to put in the time to work, vs. scrolling TikTok and Insta reels, planning another digital nomad experience, and chase other goals that should be “a given”.
Here’s what HubSpot explored for Gen Zs in a workplace.
To recap, the young generation that hasn’t yet had the chance to actually contribute to the workspace (develop strong strategy or strategic leadership, build, nurture, train teams, invest back or support the ecosystem simply because Gen Zs are ages 12 to 27), the cure goals for the vast majority are:
High pay (compensated for lack of skills yet)
Work-life balance (yes, we get it, remote working, digital nomad, flex hour, slow sprints)
Follow your passions (romantic)
Generous benefits (add to pay and travel)
Company values (every company has mission/vision)
Job security (don’t fire while on vacation)
Sociable coworkers (coffee breaks and chill after hours - still just 6% because while traveling to Thailand it doesn’t matter as much)
As this is the new generation applying for jobs right now, all the job security we’ve been designing and providing from 2014-5 to 2022 has contributed to that comfort level of being able to find a job no matter what, and travel a lot thanks to the pandemic.
Now, with more job prospects, more AI tools, and lower demand, businesses are raising the bar on job requirements - and we’re seeing some paradoxical results with no reality check in sight.
Even service businesses switch to inverse SaaS
Another common trend lately is designing for “Service-as-a-software” which I personally call “inverse SaaS”.
Here’s what foundation capital reports in this great chart:
You can find the full article here and the byline is “The push towards services represents a $4.6 trillion opportunity."
Thanks to AI agents and this oversupply of talent meeting low or unpredictable productivity, the push for replacing full-time jobs and roles with robots is going strong.
Yes, robots won’t ever replace humans fully. But all mundane and generic button-clicking roles will get automated in the coming years. The pressure toward business to hire will be released, and only capable AI operators will remain employed, managing processes and controlling the underlying machines.
This push is certainly happening here - just as we’re now scaling a network of 20+ internal sites with a couple of agents and 3 people helping out in Growth Shuttle (what we previously needed an army of marketers for just two years ago).
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