Deloitte survey finds only 45% think business has a positive impact and only 23% believe politicians did

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Australian millennials increasingly think big businesses and politicians do more harm than good, a new survey has found.

The annual Deloitte survey of Generation Y, roughly defined as those born between 1983 and 1994, found they were increasingly sceptical of politics but surprisingly more personally optimistic than last year.

Of the 337 Australian millennials surveyed, only 45% believed business had a positive impact on society, down from 72% last year. Almost half – 44% – believed businesses behaved ethically, down from 54%.

Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

The scorecard for politicians was even worse – 63% of Australian millennials believed politicians have a negative impact on society. Only 23% said they had a positive impact.

But compared to last year, Australians were much more optimistic about their personal futures, when measuring against their baby boomer parents.



More than a third (39%) believed they would be better off than their parents, and 35% said they would be happier. While this was still below the global average (51% and 41% respectively), it was a huge upturn from last year, when only 8% thought they would be better off than their parents.

The top five issues of personal concern were: terrorism (31%), climate change and the environment (30%), income inequality (24%), unemployment (23%) and war (22%).

This year’s survey adjusted the birth range of who it defined as a millennial, which may explain the shift. Last year’s survey defined it as those born between 1982 and 1999. This year it was between 1983 and 1994.

‘Young people are angry’: the teenage activists shaping our future Read more

This year’s survey also became the first to include data on the tentatively-named Generation Z – the generation after millennials – surveying 307 people born after 1995 and before 2012.

Compared to millennials, the younger generation was slightly less optimistic about the impact of automation, AI and technology on their work.

Among millennials, 45% said automation would improve and support their work, 27% said it would have no effect, 18% said it would replace at least a part of their job, and 10% didn’t know.

Among Generation Z, 32% were positive, 24% were negative and 31% thought it would have no impact.

Compared to their global counterparts, Australian millennials also said a good workplace culture was more important than salary when choosing where to work.



Workplace culture was deemed important by 67%, and salary by 63%. Globally, the same 63% chose salary, but only 52% chose culture.

About half (53%) of millennials said they would consider joining the gig economy instead of a full-time job, and 67% of Gen Z said the same.

Of the 337 millennials surveyed, 38% had children and all were in full-time employment.



Of the 307 in Generation Z, 46% were in full-time education, 36% worked part time, 10% worked full time and 9% were unemployed.