Is this it?

Millennials are experiencing a massive mid-career identity crisis

WHEN GLASSDOOR’S SENIOR economist Chris Martin went reaching for a metaphor to describe how millennials were feeling in 2026 as he wrote their 2026 millennial career report, he found himself thinking about Gen Xers, and specifically The Strokes, who in 2001 put out a classic album of ennui and listlessness in a changing world, summed up by the titular question: Is This It?

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That, he said, pretty much sums up how millennials are feeling these days, at least according to their survey data.

“We’ve made it,” Martin told Fortune, “and the long and the short of it is, it doesn’t feel good.”

Seventy-six per cent of millennials surveyed said they were questioning their career path, and millennials were posting on Glassdoor about burnout 44 per cent more often than everyone else. (For millennial women, the figure jumps to 76 per cent.) Sixty-eight per cent were delaying major life milestones because they feel their careers are insufficient, unsatisfying, unstable or a combination of all three.

Many millennials are looking around and having, Martin figures, their is this it? moment.

“I turn 34 in a week, and I am miserable after spending the last 12-plus years in various communications jobs,” one user was quoted as saying. Another complained that “somewhere along the way, stability started to feel like a rare outcome.”

Stacia Doss, Glassdoor’s senior manager of content strategy, wrote that “an entire generation is looking at everything they’ve built and asking if it’s still worth it.”

If you’re a burned-out millennial though, it’s almost a guarantee that you’re going to roll your eyes at the suggestion that Glassdoor has for you: you just need to be “stability stacking” — get another skill, another job, and if you spread the risk around enough, career disruption can be manageable.  

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“Stability stacking is a way to make sure that you have alternatives lined up should things go sideways at your current role,” Martin told Business Insider. “The reason we see more of this with millennials is because they experienced a couple really big rug-pull moments in their career.”

Some millennials, like Janel Abrahami, are embracing it. “I think stability stacking offers a more empowering way for us to break out of this very murky cycle that we find ourselves in 10 to 15 years out of college,” she said.

Others, however, aren’t so hospitable to the notion. “While stability stacking is a great way to hedge against going down a single career path that could seemingly disappear at any moment, it also takes a lot of effort to work multiple jobs, network and build new skills,” wrote Future Party’s David Vendrell. “No wonder millennials are also experiencing the most burnout.” Kieran Delamont