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Why Hong Kong employees in their 30s are so childish

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As post-80s/90s has become the main power of today’s workforce, how to manage this group of colleagues who have a different mindset than their previous generations is keeping HR leaders awake at night.

No matter they are 25 or 35 years old, many post-80s/90s employees “still feel like a child!” . Hong Kong job reviews website stealjobs.com has summed up the causes of what psychologists call an “I still feel like a child syndrome”, a common condition among post-80s/90s employees.

1. Low income

This is the biggest reason: whether they are a college student or a self-employed person, people aged 25-30 in 2018 have less opportunity to get wealthy on their own than those in the same age group in 1995.

Undergraduates, once the cream of society, were working in office buildings and highly paid. Nowadays, almost everyone has gotten a bachelor’s or even a master’s degree, but just earning around 10,000 to 20,000 monthly.

Everyone who ran their own business in the 1990s could basically earn big money; now, people who run a business not only find it difficult to make profit, but also have to face different challenges such as high rents.

2. Extreme property prices

In the 1990s, buying a property was affordable for many people. A 40-square-meter apartment located in the city centre just sold for hundreds of thousands. Now the price for the same apartment, which has become a very old building, has shot up to around 3.5 to 4.2 million. Not to mention the new launch properties.

However, the median income of middle-income households was 100,000 in the 1990s, but the index remains unchanged today. For those without their father’s (financial) assistance, it seems impossible for them to buy an ideal apartment.

3. Have not experienced “physical labour” or “famine”

Parents of most of the post-80s/90s migrated to Hong Kong from mainland China and experienced difficult days. Even those who were born and grew up locally had inevitably worked at Hong Kong-style factories, construction sites, hawking, or frontline services. Many people even had two or more jobs at the same time and never took a flight at the age of 50.

On the contrary, most of the young people nowadays are working in office buildings, having fun after work and going travel during holidays. They haven’t really been through any “the hardships of life”.

4. Always getting help from parents

Many parents of the post-80s/90s had left their hometowns at their early age and were relying on their own efforts to earn their own living.

Now, most of the young people who are unmarried or cannot afford to buy a property live with their parents. Those who have married and brought an apartment might also choose to live near their parents and always get help from their parents to solve problems.

5. Young people know better how to enjoy life and younger at heart

Young people nowadays have PS4, VR, Switch, and countless games, toys, and entertainment. The best entertainment for their parents when they were young was watching TV and singing karaoke with friends.

6. Better educated and braver to express feelings

Nowadays, many young people get along with their parents like a friend and know how to express their feelings for their parents. They always admit they are “child” rather than arguing with their parents for the sake of arguing.

On the contrary, since their parents had left their hometowns at their early age, they were distanced from their own parents and forced to become independent.

Image/123RF

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