It’s no secret that Gen Z is facing the brunt of AI job disruption. Entry-level openings in fields with high AI exposure are becoming rarer as companies downsize.
“There’s no question that the entry-level hire is under pressure,” WeWork CEO John Santora said in an interview at Fortune’s Workplace Innovation Summit on Tuesday. It’s up to senior leaders to help solve the problem.
“It’s incumbent upon all of us to bring that talent in and to educate the talent and teach them to be the future growth of all our organizations,” he told Fortune senior writer Phil Wahba. “AI is not going to provide empathy and leadership and mentoring and all those skills that you need to lead a company for a company to be successful.”
Santora has a career that seems unimaginable for Gen Z workers. He worked at the real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield for 47 years, rising from building engineer to chief operating officer. He was ready to retire when WeWork came calling in 2024, launching him into a second career as he steered the once-bankrupt company to profitability. He sees older workers taking advantage of increased longevity to reinvent themselves at 60 or 65, as he did, and to train new talent.
Even as Gen Z faces a labor market mired in uncertainty, receiving mixed signals about how AI will reshape the future of work, Upwork President and CEO Hayden Brown is not doom-and-gloom.
