Job Hunting Gets Tougher, Gen Z Complains: S1 Graduates Compete for High School/Vocational Positions

An unexpected phenomenon has emerged amid the tight job market. Several job seekers from the Gen Z generation are complaining about the increasing difficulty in finding employment, even for positions previously associated with high school or vocational school graduates. This is because many S1 graduates are now competing for those roles.

Dila, one of the job seekers who is a vocational school graduate, admitted that she is currently back on the hunt for work after her contract ended following the Eid al-Fitr celebrations. She had previously worked but is now unemployed again.

“I had worked before. Now I’m trying to find one again because my contract ended right after the takbiran last time. So now I’m empty,” said Dila when met at the Mega Career Expo Jobstreet in Jakarta on Friday (17/4/2026).

She came to this career expo after getting information from social media and intends to apply as a cashier in modern retail. “I got the info to come here from Super Indo’s IG, so I really intend to apply there. I intend to apply to be a cashier,” she said.

However, the reality on the ground made her feel somewhat discouraged. She admitted that the competition feels increasingly tough, even for cashier positions.

“If that’s the case (feeling pessimistic), I just told my friend (Deby) earlier, what if we don’t get noticed. But oh well, maybe it’s not our fate, we’ll look elsewhere. Because we’re just vocational school graduates, now it’s getting harder to find work; even those cashier positions now have S1 graduates filling them, even though they don’t stay long, but still, they’re our competitors,” she revealed.

Deby expressed the same sentiment; she is also looking for work after her contract as a cashier ended earlier this year. She is now only helping with her mother’s business while waiting for job calls.

“Yes, I’ve worked before, previously as a cashier at Ramayana. But my contract ended last January. Since then, I’ve been idle, just helping mum sell cakes, no calls yet,” said Deby.

Deby said that the current situation makes job competition increasingly unbalanced. Positions that were formerly intended for high school/vocational graduates are now also filled by university graduates, especially S1 holders.

“My friend (Dila) is right; now job hunting is hard, many vacancies that should be for us vocational (high school) graduates are also filled by S1s. I was a bit scared of losing out when I got here; while queuing in front of the booth, I looked left and right and saw S1 graduates,” she explained.

Meanwhile, Toni, another job seeker, chose to withdraw after seeing the conditions at the location. He admitted to feeling pessimistic upon seeing the long queue of applicants.

“I used to work at Alfamart. But not anymore now,” said Toni.

He came after getting information from social media but immediately felt outcompeted upon seeing the situation on the ground.

“I got the info to come here from Facebook, but when I arrived and saw the queue was crowded, I became pessimistic,” he said.

“Because the queue is already crowded, there must be a lot of competitors, so pessimistic,” he continued.

Instead of still applying, Toni chose to wait and observe the situation from outside the career expo area.

This phenomenon reflects the increasingly tight competition in the job market, where university graduates are now also filling positions that were previously the domain of high school/vocational graduates. This condition forces the intermediate graduate group to compete harder for jobs, even at the entry level.