Gen Z’s AI-proof jobs are also the unhappiest: Fortune
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — Healthcare roles Gen Z targets as resistant to artificial intelligence (AI) automation have the lowest job satisfaction of any sector, with doctors’ offices and medical clinics recording nearly 38% worker dissatisfaction in a 2025 survey of 1.28 million frontline workers by shift work platform Deputy.
Healthcare records worst satisfaction scores for 2nd consecutive year
Silvija Martincevic, chief executive officer of Deputy, said “Sentiment is more than a measure of how people feel today. It is often an early indicator of tomorrow’s performance, retention and organizational health.”
Deputy’s fourth annual Shift Pulse Report, covered by Fortune, found healthcare was the least positive sector for the second consecutive year, with 12.93% of chiropractors and 12.05% of critical and emergency services workers also reporting dissatisfaction.
Staffing shortages, emotional strain, and unpredictable rosters are cited as key contributors to declining morale, factors the report identifies as underestimated by early-career workers weighing AI-proof career pivots.
The sectors Gen Z considers safest from automation are the same ones where worker satisfaction has deteriorated for two consecutive years.
Hospitality outperforms healthcare on satisfaction by 50 points
Martincevic said “Resilience has a cost. The workers holding teams and businesses together often carry the heaviest load.”
Sit-down restaurant staff report 89.7% job satisfaction, compared to nearly 38% dissatisfaction at doctors’ offices and medical clinics, a gap exceeding 50 percentage points.
Fast food workers (82.9%), food pop-up teams (82.5%), and café staff (82%) each report satisfaction above 82%, while no healthcare category approaches that threshold.
AI is projected to reduce white-collar roles by 50% by 2030, accelerating Gen Z’s pivot toward healthcare as a perceived safe harbor despite the sector’s documented morale deficit.
Healthcare’s AI-resistance premium is real, but Deputy’s data shows early-career workers are trading automation risk for a dissatisfaction rate running at nearly 38%.
The Deputy findings reframe a risk business process outsourcing (BPO) operators know structurally: chronically disengaged AI-resistant workforces generate higher turnover than outsourced delivery models that absorb the administrative and scheduling load driving dissatisfaction.
Healthcare BPO operators managing offshore clinical support, prior authorization, and revenue cycle functions operate within the sector the report flags as morale-challenged, giving them institutional incentive to engineer engagement into service delivery.
Leading BPO operators with healthcare expertise are positioned to design staffing models that retain the patient-facing work Gen Z seeks while eliminating the administrative burdens that push dissatisfaction above 37%.
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Disclosure: Outsource Accelerator uses AI tools in the backend of its editorial workflow. Every article is reviewed and verified by a human editor before publication.
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