For Gen Z, it’s ‘not enough to work hard’ if you want to succeed, says Jamie Dimon—specific skills are the way to get ahead

“When you graduate, whether it’s high school, or community college, or college, you need the skills to get the job,” Dimon said in a recent interview with CNN. “It’s not enough anymore to say ‘I can work hard.’ In the old days, you could be in 10th grade, go get a factory in Detroit, and eventually you could afford a family, a home, a car, and that may not be true anymore.”

Dimon’s words will resonate with many. Even in the last few years, buying a home has become increasingly unaffordable for first-time buyers. Per data from the National Association of Realtors, in 2022, its housing affordability index stood at 108, with a value of 100 representing a family with the median income having exactly enough income to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced home.

By 2025, this had dropped to 97.4, meaning the average American family trying to buy their first home doesn’t have the income to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced home.

Likewise, childcare costs have rocketed compared to a few decades ago. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis charting tuition, school fees and childcare across an average of U.S. cities has increased from an index of 100 in 1983 to 897 by September 2025.

In the face of increased costs of living, younger workers now graduating and entering the workforce are more concerned than their older counterparts about the threat of artificial intelligence. Nearly one in five Gen Z workers reported being deeply worried that artificial intelligence (AI) will put them out of work within the next two years, according to a recent survey from Deutsche Bank Research. But their older peers are notably less alarmed: While nearly a quarter of young adults aged 18 to 34 gave high scores of concern on a 0-10 scale, only about one in 10 baby boomers and Gen Xers (aged 55 and above) expressed comparable anxiety.

Dimon said that AI and coding are areas where “we know we need the skills,” adding speedy industry training courses also present paths to secure employment: “And it works, those things work. We just have to get people to invest in them.”

Many of the nation’s fastest-growing job markets are in highly specialized sectors—some of which require no degree but do require technical training. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’s projections for job growth in 2023–2033 released last year, wind turbine service technicians came in first with a growth rate of 60% and median annual pay of just under $62,000. No degree is required.

Second was solar photovoltaic installers with a growth rate of 48% and annual pay of a little under $49,000—again, no degree required.

Plumbers and electricians in demand

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has also urged job market entrants to explore skills-focused roles adjacent to the immediate technology sector.

While the billions being invested into AI have pushed up valuations courtesy of promised efficiencies and streamlining, Huang points out that it will also have real-world impacts when it comes to building data centers and the wider infrastructure needed to support the shift.

“If you’re an electrician, you’re a plumber, a carpenter—we’re going to need hundreds of thousands of them to build all of these factories,” Huang told Channel 4 News in the U.K. in September. “The skilled craft segment of every economy is going to see a boom. You’re going to have to be doubling and doubling and doubling every single year.”

Huang isn’t alone. Earlier this year BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told an energy conference he has warned the White House about the shortage of workers needed to support the rollout: “I’ve even told members of the Trump team that we’re going to run out of electricians that we need to build out AI data centers. We just don’t have enough.”