Over the past few weeks, the START team has been looking at your wishes – the wishes and demands that members of Generation Z place on their jobs and employers. Four-day week, home office, sabbatical: Is it all utopian or the new standard? What is the truth of the cliché that young people are lazier than their parents? To what extent would economic power be endangered if everyone were to work less in the future?

To answer these questions, we spoke with 23-year-old McKinsey consultant Sebastian Buck, who is currently on sabbatical and traveling in the USA. We met 21-year-old entrepreneur Mona Ghazi and 24-year-old student Luca Heckhoff. We pored over studies and interviewed economists, sociologists, generational researchers and the head of the Federal Employment Agency, Andrea Nahles.

These were exciting encounters that made a lot clear to us: young and old are often much closer than many people think. Because in the end, the vast majority of people want the same thing – namely a great, meaningful job in which you don't break yourself.

We hope you enjoy reading

Katharina Hölter, Editor SPIEGEL Start

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