Millennials take less time off

The argument

Proponents of this view argue that laziness is a claim about conduct rather than attitude, and that the measurable form of the claim is how much work a person actually does. Measured that way, they say, millennials come out ahead of the generations accusing them. A quarter of 18–25-year-olds in the workplace take none of their holiday days at all. Among millennial women the pattern is stronger still: just 44 per cent used all of their paid time off in 2016, against 51 per cent of millennial men, which makes millennial women on this evidence the hardest workers of any group in the comparison. The figures matter, on this account, because unused leave is a revealed preference rather than a stated one. Holiday is already granted and already paid for; forgoing it costs the worker something and benefits the employer, so a worker who declines to take it is demonstrating commitment in a currency that cannot be faked in a survey. Someone who is genuinely idle does not leave paid days on the table. The comparison is then sharpened by what each generation is given in the first place. Baby Boomers and Generation X workers report leaving a similar percentage of their holiday unused, so the rate of non-use is not what separates the generations. But millennials receive less holiday than their older colleagues, and a similar proportion of a smaller allowance is a smaller number of days. The arithmetic runs one way: fewer days granted, no greater willingness to use the days that are granted, and therefore more days spent at work across the year than any other generation manages. Far from being lazy, proponents conclude, millennials are the generation putting in the most working days each year, and the charge of laziness is not supported by the record of days worked.

Context

Millennials are less likely to take time off than other generations.

Premises

Counter-arguments

If you actually dig into why they take less time off, it doesn’t reflect a workaholic attitude, it reflects an inability to communicate. 25% of millennials polled feel nervous asking for time off from their employer. In the same poll, only 6% of baby boomers said the same. This is because millennials are not able to broach difficult subjects with their employer in a polite yet effective way. They have been pampered all their lives, winning trophies for coming in last place and being spoken to in such a delicate way so as not to offend, and are now not able to have difficult conversations, such as requesting holiday time at work.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] This isn't a reflection of the millennial work ethic, it is a reflection of their inability to effectively communicate.