Young adults in the U.S. are far more pessimistic about the job market than older adults, creating a wider generational divide than in any other country surveyed by Gallup, according to a recent report.
Gallup found that in 2025, 43% of Americans aged 15 to 34 considered it a good time to find a job in their local area, compared with 64% of those aged 55 or older. Globally, however, younger adults were generally more optimistic than older adults: a median of 48% of young adults were positive about finding a local job, compared with 38% of older adults.
According to Gallup, only five other places — China, Serbia, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, and Norway — had more young adults than older adults expressing skepticism about the job market. However, in those areas, the gap is about 10 to 12 percentage points, compared with the 21-point divide seen in the U.S.
Despite the generational gap, young Americans are not more pessimistic about the job market than their counterparts in other countries.
“What makes the U.S. unusual is not the lack of positivity among young people itself, but that Americans aged 55 and older, many of them no longer in the workforce, remain relatively upbeat — even as young adults have soured,” Gallup noted.
Young Americans’ current views on the job market appear to be counteracting a years-long trend in which young adults were typically more optimistic about finding work than older adults. Gallup said 2024 marked the first year older Americans expressed greater confidence in the job market. However, both groups’ views on the job market grew increasingly pessimistic between 2023 and 2025.
Gallup also found that young women were significantly more likely than young men to say they were not optimistic about finding a job in their local area. Those with college degrees or higher levels of education, as well as those not yet employed full-time, were also likely to be pessimistic about the job market.