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Gen Z is never beating the unemployable allegations. For Gen Z, a growing confidence crisis means common workplace interactions are now a major source of anxiety. Working with unfamiliar colleagues, making small talk, using the phone, and waking up early were among the biggest anxieties for young workers, according to new research from Trinity College London. These fears have also been echoed online. Can we talk about the fear of having to make a phone call in a dead silent office of cubicles, one TikTok creator recently posted. When you finally finish sending that email thats been giving you anxiety and they respond with are you free for a quick call? another viral post reads. The trick is to send this email a few minutes before you go home and then you have valid excuse for “not seeing” the response, one commenter suggested. In two national surveys of 1,538 people aged 16 to 29 across the U.K., 42% said they feel anxious about working with others, 38% find small talk anxiety-inducing, and 30% report phone anxiety. Notably, respondents were more worried about everyday office interactions than about their jobs becoming redundant because of AI. Presenting work (25%) and accepting criticism (22%) were also major concerns. POV: youre presenting on a work call, but your anxiety thinks youre being hunted for sport, one TikTok creator summed it up. More than half of respondents (59%) said they find it difficult collaborating with older colleagues. That may be tied to changing office culture and norms. Over half felt that traditional workplace banter can be inappropriate or offensive, while 42% said theyd had a negative interaction with a colleague or boss. One TikTok creator claimed, Youve never really experienced jealousy until youve worked at a corporation where theres some old coworker who hates you for just being young, skinny and hot. A sentiment echoed by others online. The poll also found 21% had or were dreading entering the workplace for the first time, while 33% of those already in employment said it was challenging. Starting out at work has never been an easy transition, but shifting workplace norms seem to be dialling up the anxiety for the youngest workers. (And honestly, many of the things on the list stress out workers of all ages, too.) So what can employers do to help mitigate the anxiety? Asked what they would change about the workplace, 32% said mental health days should be standard, while 28% would scrap the 9-to-5 in favor of flexible hours. Early mornings and strict start times, many said, filled them with dread. Am I the only one who contemplates quitting their job when I keep having to wake up early and am really tired one TikTok post read. Or as one creator summed up the general mood: The concept of waking up early (which I hate) to go to work (which I hate) to be there ALL day (which I hate) to get off and go home (which I love) and to have to rinse & repeat literally everyday for the rest of ur life (which I hate).
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E-Commerce
Concerns about an AI bubble and increased competition are weighing on Nvidia as the stock fell to a three-month low on Wednesday. Shares of the Santa Clara, California-based company tumbled more than 3% amid a broader decline for those chipmakers that are key to the artificial intelligence boom. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom were also down 4% and 5%, respectively. In recent weeks, a slew of companies have made moves that could chip away at Nvidias domination as the go-to maker of chips for the AI industry. One such company, MetaX Integrated Circuits of China, debuted an initial public offering on Wednesday and surged nearly 700%. BEHIND NVIDIAS DECLINE Once a darling among stock market investors, the hits keep coming for Nvidia lately. Some of its chips are effectively banned in China, while the company has also become a poster child for concerns of a bubble in the AI industry that some investors worry is reminiscent of the dot-com bubble about 25 years ago. In late October, Nvidia became the first stock to be valued at more than $5 trillion. Even though enthusiasm has cooled since then, some investors still worry that the stock prices of AI-related companies are completely disconnected from reality. And the constant rumblings of skepticism don’t show any sign of letting up as Nvidia has become a popular target for short-sellers. Some prominent investors who have successful track records of calling other market declines have become vocal critics of the AI boom. Michael Burry and Jim Chanos are both shorting Nvidia stock, meaning they will make money if the price goes down further. ANALYSTS SIGNAL OPTIMISM Even so, UBS strategists this week put out a report projecting that global capital expenditure on AI could surge nearly 35% next year to $571 billion. And the bank is projecting further gains through the end of the decade. We do not see evidence of an investment bubble, Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote in a research note Tuesday, as reported by Barron’s.. As AI adoption expands from consumer chatbots to broader enterprise and industry use cases, we estimate that the required compute capacity could be orders of magnitude greater than todays installed base, Haefele wrote. What’s more, Bank of America analysts similarly say that the AI boom is still in its early days and has more runway for growth. Nvidia even tops the bank’s recommended list of AI stocks to buy in 2026, according to The Street. But such positive reports did little to counter the negative sentiment surrounding Nvidia. The stock has tumbled more than 16% in the span of about two months.
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E-Commerce
In the months following 2023s Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors GuildAmerican Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes, film-industry workers adopted a refrain: Survive til 25 — a meager goal reflecting industry reality. The strikes came shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic ground production to a halt. The dream factory had become a nightmare. The pandemic-inflicted production pause bled workers savings, forcing many to seek income outside the industry. Once work restarted, those who wanted to return to work — grips, camera operators, writers, directors, administrative staff, the Teamsters who ferry cast and crew to film sets — found some of those jobs never came back — the new normal of smaller, leaner Hollywood, had arrived. While union members voted almost unanimously in favor of the twin writers and actors strike, it dragged on, and the industry contraction continued. Two years after the end of those strikes, production is still down. When news broke that Netflix sought to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery for $83 billion, a deal that includes its sprawling Burbank studio lots, and HBO Max (WBDs cable channels would be spun off into a separate entity), the industrys workers were quick to voice their opposition. The worlds largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent, the WGA-West and WGA-East said in a statement urging the deal be blocked. The outcome would eliminate jobs, push down wages, worsen conditions for all entertainment workers, raise prices for consumers, and reduce the volume and diversity of content for all viewers. The DGA released a similar statement; Director James Cameron frankly warned that the buyout would be a disaster. SAG-AFTRA was slightly more measured. A deal that is in the interest of SAG-AFTRA members and all other workers in the entertainment industry must result in more creation and more production, not less, the union said in a statement. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos sees only upside, describing the merger as pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker as well as pro-creator and pro-growth. Prospects for the streaming giant appear rosy: On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that WBD is rejecting Paramount Skydances attempt at a hostile takeover, stemming in part from concerns over the deals financing. Netflixs bid, the board believes, still offers greater shareholder value. David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount-Skydance, has tried to assuage criticism of his proposed takeover by stating that a combined Paramount-WBD would have more than 30 theatrical releases per year, a slight increase over the current output of the two studios. But skepticism among the industrys workers comes from precedent. When companies merge, it means job losses and fewer projects. IATSE, the union of below the line film workerscamera operators and technicians, makeup and costume artists, grips, electricians, and the likenoted the deleterious consequences that follow from such deals in a recent issue of its bulletin. Unfortunately, when large entities merge, they dont continue producing the same amount of content as when they were two separate companies, the union wrote. (IATSE has not yet commented on the Netflix-WBD deal.) Bleeding jobs In April 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded a loss of 217,000 jobs in the motion-picture and sound-recording industry — its biggest single-month drop ever. Even as the pandemic receded, production didnt return. FilmLA, a nonprofit set up by the City and County of Los Angeles, found the LA metro area lost nearly 19.7 percent of its share of first-run scripted television projects between 2022 and 2023, one of the largest drops since the organization began tracking the data. The number translates to thousands of lost jobs. In 2023, workers struck to secure more sustainable wages and benefits and protections against the threats posed by artificial intelligence. But strikes are an economic disruption (indeed, therein lies their power) and studios decision to downsize following the recent ones may prove permanent. A 2025 report from Otis College of Art and Design found that Californias film, television, and sound sector is roughly one-quarter smaller than in 2022. FilmLAs 2025 Q2 report logged 5,394 on-location shoot days, down 6.2 percent from the previous year and more than 30 percent below the five-year average. Productions continue chasing tax incentives abroad (you might be surprised how much unscripted television is shot in Ireland for this reason), further cratering domestic production. By the end of 2024, the BLS recorded 100,000 jobs in the industry in the greater Los Angeles area, down from 142,000 two years earlier. When one considers freelancers and adjacent industriesthe citys service sector, for instance, is inextricably tied to cinemathe losses are even higher. There is plenty of evidence to support that contention. When Disney merged with 21st Century Fox in 2021, 3,000 people lost their jobs amid downsizing, delayed or permanently shelved projects. Disney shuttered Blue Sky Studios (best known for the Ice Age franchise) the same year, eliminating 450 animation jobs. WBDs merger with Cartoon Network Studios eliminated axed departments. NBCUniversal, Lionsgate, and Netflix have all carried out company-wide layoffs in recent years. Ellison, son of billionaire Larry Ellison, laid off 1,000 people at Paramount after purchasing the company earlier this year. The CEO has stated that he plans to reduce the workforce by a further 2,000 — numbers that are sure to weigh on WBD employees minds should Ellisons attempted hostile takeover of WBD succeed. Uncertain future The Netflix-WBD deal is expected to face regulatory scrutiny over its potential consequencs for consumers: Netflix is already the leading streaming-video-on-demand (SVOD) company, with 300 million subscribers; adding HBO Max to its base would make that 430 million. Antitrust regulations require investigation for any deal that would allow a single entity to control more than 30 percent of a market; this one would give Netflix a 43 percent share of the SVOD market. But its not only the potential for subscription price hikes and the continued decimation of the moviegoing experience that are at issue. Worker opposition can also cause the Department of Justice to block the merger, as it did with Penguin Random Houses $2 billion bid to purchase Simon & Schuster. Authors, including Stephen King, testified that the merged super-publisher would mean lower advances for their books, with dire consequences. A combined Netflix-WBD poses the same risks. A writer or director hoping to get a project greenlit by a studio will have one fewer potential buyer. The megacorporation may ultimately constitute a monopsony employer, able to dictate the standards of employment across the industry by dint of its size. The imperious studio executive declaring Youll never work in this town again! to an underling is a familiar trope in Hollywood; Netflix-WBD executives will hold such power. Fewer companies means fewer people deciding what art you can see, what options the viewer has. It means greater sidelining of visionary work, the type that executives dismiss as too weird, not marketable, or politically inconvenient.Its too soon to say how this will all shake out. Netflix and WBD believe it will take eighteen months to complete the deal and clear all regulatory hurdles. WBD’s rejection of Ellisons counter-bid may not put an end to hish campaign to turn the public and regulators against Netflixs purchase. Yet Ellisons proposed purchase of WBD has its own problems, from its conglomeration of financial backers whose ties to the Trump administration will alarm many in the industry, to its own possible antitrust obstacles. For Sarandos, Ellison, and WBD CEO David Zaslav, making quality films that pay workers enough to keep them in the industry, is of course, not the goal. Maximizing shareholder value remains the priority. No matter what the executives say, neither potential merger is likely to be good for the worker. And so its up to them to look out for their own — and by extension, film itself. Even in the most unfavorable labor market, there is a power in such clarity of vision.
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E-Commerce
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