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Audacious, brazen, laughable. These are some of the reactions on a discussion on social media platform Reddit about Gen-Z fresh graduates in the country who ask for a starting pay of 30,000 pesos (RM2,510).
Gen Z refers to those born between 1997 and 2012, with the oldest among them just 26 years old.
While 30,000 pesos a month seems like a low figure in richer countries, it feels like a luxury for many in the Philippines, a developing country deep in debt that has long grappled with poverty, a lack of decent jobs and soaring inflation.
The average starting pay of a graduate is about 20,000 pesos (RM1,670), according to South-east Asian job search firm JobStreet.
Some people criticise Gen-Z job seekers for asking for too much pay with zero work experience, adding that they should prove themselves first.
However, some Gen-Z workers said it was only fair to ask for such pay. In particular, a supportive tweet in June 2023 by someone with the handle @fillinthebiancx was viewed 1.2 million times.
“I don’t know why people are s*****g on Gen Zs for demanding at least 30,000 pesos (for a) starting salary. I personally think it’s great that they’re realistic in asking for a salary that they can actually live off of! A 20,000 pesos salary (in) this economy??? Come on.”
This debate over whether Gen-Z workers in the Philippines are overly demanding when it comes to pay reflects how these newcomers are challenging norms in the workplace.
They are said to be more vocal than their older colleagues in pushing for better benefits and flexible working conditions, including work-from-home arrangements and mental-health breaks.
In June 2023, a survey by Deloitte found that 81% of Gen-Z workers in the Philippines would consider looking for a new job if their employer makes them return to the office full time, higher than the 76% of millennials – those aged 29 to 40.
Many Gen-Z employees entered the labour force at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, so working remotely was the norm for them, said Jonathan Yabut, managing director of marketing consultancy and talent training service firm JY Consultancy and Ventures.
“I think the pandemic became a catalyst for (these work expectations from Gen Zs). But I also think because Gen Z has been very vocal about it, they have the power of social media, they have the power to talk about it with their peers and they also have the power of volume,” Yabut said in a Sept 24 interview with Philippine news channel ANC’s Insight business show.
Communications specialist John Santos, 24, told his supervisor at a major Philippine bank that he would leave the company if it pushed through with its plan in early 2022 to require employees to work at the office again.
He joined the team a year before, during the height of the pandemic lockdowns.
The company offered to give him a 5,000 pesos (RM420) allowance to cover transportation and food costs, but he did not budge.
He was living in Rizal, a province about 20km from his office in Taguig City in the Manila metropolitan area.
Commuting would eat up four hours daily and cost him 4,500 pesos (RM380) per month.
The fatigue, plus added expenses for food, he said, would not be commensurate with the allowance offered.
He said his Gen-Z colleagues had the same concerns, so the management dropped the return-to-office plan.
“Going back to the office meant taking away hours of our day just so we could commute there and back. So I wouldn’t be able to do things for myself, like going to the gym, meeting my friends, doing side hustles,” he said.
For junior product designer Denise Quico, 24, seeking better pay and benefits is not about being entitled. Some people may have a lot of work experience already despite their youth, she argued.
She cites her own case as an example. Before she graduated from Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in information technology entrepreneurship in 2022, Quico said she had already done several paid internships that gave her experience in designing apps and websites.
She sought a 35,000-peso-a-month (RM2,930) job at a design studio, citing her past work experiences and her own research on local industry rates.
“I was asking for a fair rate considering my experience, skills and portfolio. I felt I had the skills to be worth that much even if I was still in school then,” Quico told The Straits Times.
She and the company initially agreed on a pay of 20,000 pesos, but when the final offer came, she said it was reduced to 18,000 pesos (RM1,500). When she questioned the company, it decided to cancel the offer.
“They told me I was being too greedy,” she said.
Quico ended up working for another design studio, where she had interned previously, at a starting pay of 26,000 pesos (RM2,170). She accepted the job as she valued the mentorship from her bosses and the studio’s good reputation.
LinkedIn’s country leader for the Philippines, Atul Harkisanka, told The Straits Times that Filipino Gen Zs often seek out work-life balance, flexible working arrangements, alignment of personal values with company values and an overall good company culture.
He said LinkedIn, a job search social platform, has seen a 154% surge globally in job postings in the last two years for entry-level positions that highlight the values of the company, to attract Gen-Z job seekers.
“While Gen Zs are often viewed as challenging conventional workplace norms, they’ve also been credited for pushing topics like mental health to the forefront,” he added.
According to the World Economic Forum, Gen-Z workers will make up 27% of the global workforce by 2025.
In the Phillippines, about 11.7 million of 67.4 million Filipino workers in 2022 are Gen Zs, according to 2022 data from the Philippine Statistics Authority. These young workers have growing clout in the workplace, noted Yabut.
“Usually, it’s more of what do employers want, and the applicants follow the employers. But this time, it seems like because the Gen Zs want to work from home and get flexible benefits and working hours, a lot of companies lately have been adjusting to what they have been clamouring for in a post-pandemic world,” he said.
One criticism of Gen-Z workers in the Philippines is that they tend to be more outspoken when they feel that they have been unfairly treated by their companies and would even air their complaints on social media.
Marky Torres, a 26-year-old qualitative researcher, left his previous company after working there for two years because of heated exchanges with his bosses over a task he was not able to perform well.
He had to prepare a weekly bulletin summarising key news developments in the country and admitted that his writing skills then were not good.
Torres decided to resign when he felt the feedback from his bosses became too harsh, to the point that he cried at home.
“You can give feedback about my work. You can give feedback like how it misses the mark. But you can’t give feedback about me as a person, say I don’t care, because it doesn’t contribute to my growth, my welfare,” he said.
“Don’t assume that I’m not trying hard enough because the results are not up to your standards.”
He has since moved to another research firm, where Torres said his superiors have been more objective in assessing his performance.
He said they are also open when he gives suggestions on how to improve company systems.
“I do appreciate it when people don’t have to pull rank and say, ‘I’m older than you. I’m better than you’,” he said.
Yabut said he instead often tells managers to give regular constructive feedback to Gen-Z employees – and to not only do it when they make mistakes.
This can be on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis, he added.
Santos hopes that older generations will understand where Gen-Z workers are coming from.
“From the pandemic, we saw remote working as a viable model for all organisations. It’s just a matter of re-strategising your business and human resources model.
“I don’t think it’s fair to tell us we are demanding when I think we are just trying to advocate for what we think is right,” he said.
Quico concedes that her peers can be too demanding or sensitive at times, but she hopes older generations can give Gen Zs a chance.
She said Gen Zs will likely keep on asking for better pay and benefits, but will ultimately listen to the wisdom of those who came before them.
“We are pretty flexible in that way,” she said.
“Because at the end of the day, we just entered the workforce. We don’t know everything.” — The Straits Times/ANN
