Five young friends meet in bar. All of them had been to university. Four had graduated, and one dropped out. All are now about 23 years old, and all of them are in “good” professional jobs.

When a friend old enough to be their mother asked them about their work, in unison they replied, “we hate our jobs”.

If a mortgage is out of reach, it is a lot easier to skip jobs, notwithstanding eye-watering rents.Credit: Peter Rae

You’d be forgiven for thinking these women were slaving away in lower-skilled roles inconsistent with their education. However, respectively, they have roles as a: team leader of lawyers; administrative assistant; medical scientist; human resources manager; and marketing specialist. With the exception, of course, of human resources, not much to hate there as you might have thought.

Notwithstanding some concerns I have about the methodology, Gallup’s State of the Global Workforce Survey for 2023, reinforces the concerns about levels of job satisfaction. In Australia and New Zealand they report almost half (47 per cent) report daily stress, and 15 per cent report anger.

Actually according to Gallup, women are faring slightly better: 25 per cent as a whole are thriving at work, the rest they define as being in different volumes (quiet/loud) of quitting. Even, allowing for arguments about definitions of........

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