The Great Canary is singing.

“Young workers are a labor market indicator: They are usually the last to get hired and the first to get fired. If we see high rates of youth unemployment, we are likely either heading into a weak economy or out of one.”

Let that sink in when you read this: “Unemployment is rising, and young people are feeling it the most. Overall U.S. unemployment hit 4.3% in August, the highest since 2021. But for 16- to 24-year-olds, the rate is 10.5%.”

Correlating these two data points doesn’t bode well for many people trying to get a full-time W2 right now. The broader market is tightening, but Gen Z is taking the heaviest hit—and that’s where the real signal is. My spirit animal, The Great Canary, tells me that it's going to get worse and Gen X is next.

I know quite a few people from my generation who are working, praying, hoping to land a full-time W2 right now (and even more who are doing everything they can to keep theirs). Most of them don’t want to go back to jail and would prefer to start their own thing and tear apart the market, but they feel the need and urgency based on their life responsibilities. I’ll never tell any of you not to keep pursuing it.

Having said that, given historical data of the last three years, and now this update, it seems to me the play right now is to bet on yourself and get into a do-what-it-takes to learn new skills, methods, and perspectives to create something new. And so that I am clear, I am not, in any way shape or form, talking about getting into coaching. You’d have better success flipping used Teslas right now—prove me wrong.

Confidence with stability is hard to come by for both people in a job or on the outside. If you’re in, you’re doing everything you can to stay put which—highly likely—means you’re taking on way more additional responsbility. If you’re on the outside it means you’re doing everything to find a way in a door and past the fourth of fifth phone call. But even after a six month slog and that one really good call with the CEO—nothing.

Everything I learned from Peter Gibbons says that it’s time to get punk and bet on ourselves. We’re way past the window for Two Bobs Salvation. Build my own confidence, continue learning, and turn that knowledge into a future that can not be known today. Go full on Joanna—throw the flair to the ground—that’s the move.

Back to Gen Z, I feel for them. They did everything they were brought up to do while on their parents leash and graduated just as the rules changed, and nobody knows what the rules are yet. When I see that so many folks are out of work my brain thinks about how to bring them together, teach them the soft-skills and professional development they missed at home and in college. We'll take down legacy companies built on decades of tradition, protectionism, and largely the bullshit that comes from resisting real, meaningful evolution.

To be clear, I’m thinking way beyond design—that game is over for now. I’d bring people in from different trades and vocations, get them up to speed on Gen X skills—street smarts—and ready the force for corporate war. Because the next 12-18 months is going to be the prime window to build the next wave with  resilience, adaptibility, literacy, loops, and double down on human agency.

If I was a CEO thinking about how to test the future without legacy and fear holding back ingenuity, that’s their move to make. Now is the perfect time to bring that kill-the-fax-machine energy to the workplace and make a future we  can’t see today, but will be in full view tomorrow.