Tinker, tailor, welder, spy

Mobile Gen Zers will job-hop their way their through working life, writes Susan Edmunds.

Marlane Harmer admits caught the welding bug.

The 24-year-old from Hawke’s Bay is doing a mechanical engineering apprenticeship at Ravensdown in Napier, with the ambition of becoming a qualified underwater welder in a few years’ time – a role so specialised that it is hard to find anyone in New Zealand who can even offer the training required.

But while she knows what she wants to do with her career now, that has not always been the case.

Out of school at 16, Harmer took cleaning jobs, forestry gigs and did work experience in IT. She was working as a bartender when she met the Ravensdown staff who would finally help her get her role there, after she was turned down by a number of other engineering companies.

‘‘You’ve got to go through the motions to find out what you want to do,’’ she says. ‘‘I didn’t know until later on, when I got the itch for welding.’’

Projections published by GenerationZ.com.au reveal that today’s average teen is ‘‘vocationally mobile, entrepreneurial, and truly global’’.

‘‘Generation Z will have 17 employers across five separate careers, working in jobs that don’t even currently exist.’’

Harmer’s experience is quite different to that of her parents.

Her father has had a lifelong career at the local meatworks and her mother also worked there for many years before switching to accounting.

‘‘He stayed there for the money,’’ Harmer says. ‘‘He probably doesn’t love his job. But I’m trying to do something where I’m making money at the same time but going there and enjoying my work. The money is less important.’’

Jane Kennelly, of Frog Recruitment, said a big shift was happening. ‘‘Once upon a time an employer would say they want people for three to five years at least but those days have gone.’’

She said the workforce was now much more mobile and people who were used to ‘‘app-ifying’’ their personal lives with instant gratification and constant stimulation wanted to be able to run their work lives in a similar way. ‘‘The employer has a challenge to keep them engaged,’’ she said. ‘‘Generation Z themselves need to teach organisations how to manage their dynamic relationships. she has