Young Workers in the Information Technology Area: A Speech about the Flexibility of the Y Generation in Work

On the last decades, the world of work has suffered a series of transformations. More and more, the formal work, for uncertain time and built based on careers gives place to a flexible work. This work is characterized by being temporary, organized by projects, realized on variable places and times, network dependent, and individual. In a world of work configured this way, the idea that the young workers would be able for these new experiences gains power, as they were more flexible, open to the risks and to the shapes of flexible work in general matter. This discourse gains power with the notion of "Y Generation", that presumes that the young workers that are entering in the labor market have intrinsic characteristics associated to the idea of flexibility. So, our proposal is to discuss critically the idea of Y generation, analyzing the way that the workers live the new configuration of the work worl, that means, in what level the flexibility discourse, the idea of innovation, the individual talent, the constant update and the "creative" unstableness are interiorized by them. For this, we interviewed, using a semi-structured script, about 30 workers, between 20 and 30 years old, approximately, that act on the Information technology(IT) area in the São Paulo state, Brazil. The IT area was chosen because it is the in the ones that most increase in the context of work flexibility, with expressive participation among young people within its employees. We have observed that, regarding the existence of a speech that affirms that the young workers flexibility is “positive”, these workers have to be submitted to ways of work increasingly precarious and intensified, that, in some cases, results on ways of physical and psychological illness.