Only 13% of Gen Z say that most people can be trusted, according to a report by a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, while 74% think “you can’t be too careful.”
“Gen Z will be the least trusting generation in modern American history,” wrote Ryan Burge, who is also a data analyst and professor of practice at the university, in the report.
Millennials were slightly more trusting than Gen Z at 24%, while 30% of Gen X and 29% of boomers agreed that most people can be trusted. The Silent Generation—those born before 1945—is by far the most trusting at 41%, according to data between 2021 and 2024 that Burge cited from the General Social Survey, a biennial sociological study conducted out of the University of Chicago.
This phenomenon certainly colors Gen Z’s personal relationships. But in the era of automated hiring processes, ghosting, forever layoffs and constant side hustles, it’s also reshaping the workplace as we know it.
Jaded, tired and anxious
Burge puts this trust gap down to a number of reasons in his analysis, including religion and education. But, as he explained to Fast Company, “[Gen Z’s] parents raised them to be extra cautious about everything,” he says.
“They’re just terrified of making a mistake, and I think that leads naturally to a lack of trust in other people.”
A sheltered upbringing that overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by cancel culture and social media scrutiny and cynicism, has led Gen Z to embrace loss aversion, which Burge explained as “the idea that losing feels worse than winning feels good.” And they’re more distrustful because of it.
This isn’t a uniquely Gen Z issue. Over a third of the employees surveyed said they don’t have colleagues that they trust enough to share personal issues with. More than four in 10 rarely or never have conversations with coworkers about anything other than work.
But for Gen Z in particular, this trust gap is linked with having entered the workforce during COVID, and missing out on in-office soft skills as a result of remote learning and working.
“Unfortunately, I think a lot of young people just don’t ever build up that baseline of trust,” says Burge. “Being around people, what you learn more and more is that the average person is pretty trustworthy.”
Disillusionment with a broken system
Gen Z’s distrust is especially noticeable in the workplace, data suggests.
Gen Zers are 16 times as likely to say they don’t trust their coworkers as Gen X employees, according to a 2026 survey from Workday. They’re also significantly more mistrustful of their employers: Only 41% of Gen Z employees said they trust their employer, according to a 2025 Indeed survey, compared with about 65% of millennials and 71% of baby boomers. Further, a 2025 GenHQ study found that 47% of Gen Z have quit a job due to lack of trust in leadership, and 45% would take a 10% pay cut to work for a boss they completely trust.
Trust is one of the strongest predictors of whether employees stay or leave. But over the past few decades, American business has gradually upended its deal with workers. If workers aren’t fearful of their jobs being automated, they are at least skeptical of companies using AI to justify big layoffs.
These fears are not unfounded. Eight in 10 leaders have used “layoffs” to get rid of an employee they wanted gone, according to a 2024 survey from Resume Builder, and 54% did it to shirk paying severance.
On top of that, many Gen Z workers watched their parents push themselves to burnout, only to be ousted from long-held positions. They’re skeptical about showing the same professional loyalty, instead prioritizing work-life balance and often seeking out their own nonlinear paths instead of trusting corporate ladders. Social media, awash with “get laid off with me” vlogs and stories about toxic bosses, has only amplified this sense of mistrust in traditional workplaces. The surveillance boom is further damaging the trust between employers and employees.
The benefit of being less trusting, of course, is you are less likely to be taken advantage of. But as Burge notes, “That’s the cost of doing business. That’s literally the cost of being a human.” If workers can’t fundamentally trust each other, true connection feels impossible.
Being ghosted and burning out
Scam listings and ghost jobs are everywhere. The 2026 Job Seeker Nation Report from the AI-powered hiring platform Employ found that 32% of applicants say they’ve been ghosted by a company. (On the flip side, a 2025 survey of hiring managers found that 54% had been ghosted by a Gen Z candidate after extending an offer.) This crisis of trust is bad for business.
For Gen Z workers, “I think ultimately what happens is they’re just super unproductive,” Grace McCarrick, a speaker and creator who leads corporate soft skills workshops, tells Fast Company. “They’re too busy worrying about the hidden agenda.”
Employee engagement has hit its lowest level since 2020, according to Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report, dropping for the second year in a row and costing an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity.
“People are really unhappy at work,” said McCarrick. “You would be too if you thought around every corner was some mustache-twirling monster trying to make your life worse and make themselves $100 million.”
Daring to trust
Trust is a two-way street. McCarrick believes young workers also have a responsibility to establish a baseline level of trust with their colleagues and employers—at least until proof of the contrary.
“You don’t have to trust that the CEO is a good person. You don’t have to trust that the company is being completely transparent about every decision,” she said. “I think you have to do the best you can to get into a job where you can go, ‘OK, I can trust enough.’”
Burge, the author of the report on trust, says he’s “a big believer that trust really builds up over a long set of interactions with other people.” Employers can help build trust with Gen Z by acknowledging their contributions, following through on their words with actions, and acting with integrity.
“When decisions affect people, I think it’s important to get as close as you can to why you made that decision and what alternatives would have been,” says McCarrick.
In the end, it’s up to Gen Z to surrender suspicion, to fall and hope someone catches them. Even if no one does?
“It’s worth getting taken advantage of sometimes to feel the connection of being a human in society,” says Burge.