Our data shows that Gen Z’s appetite for international relocations isn’t all it seems.
By Zain Ali | 15 September 2025
“Lazy”, “jaded”, “unprepared”, “easily offended” – or just “misunderstood”? Whatever the adjective, scrutinising Gen Z’s attitude to work has become a dependable fall-back for journalists in search of a story.
Some find it crass to talk about a whole generation as if they were exotic aliens awaiting autopsy, rather than friends and colleagues who happened to be born after 1997. Pundits should ask themselves whether age-related stereotypes are really conducive to a happy and productive workplace.
Nonetheless, there’s a grain of truth buried in the sneers. As recent research makes clear, younger employees do often display a different attitude to work than their older peers.
Out of all cohorts, Gen Zs are unusually preoccupied with forging a career that reflects their values. Only 6% put reaching leadership positions above any other considerations. And given they’re 58% more likely to leave their jobs in the next two years than their more settled millennial counterparts, Gen Zs are also a fluid bunch.
But there’s another aspect to the Gen Z philosophy of work that gets less attention from commentators – and it’s one that should cheer up Global Mobility teams.
Younger employees are most likely to be actively seeking opportunities to live and work abroad.
Gen Z: the most mobile generation
At Centuro, we help the world’s best companies move thousands of employees across the world each year. All this activity gives us a keen sense of the dynamics at play in global businesses’ mobility strategies.
So what does our internal data show about the typical ages of staff on the move?
- Around 60% of our global visa and work permit cases are for applicants under the age of 30.
- Four in ten of all applicants are aged 25-29
- Those aged 27-29 are the largest cohort of all, accounting for a quarter of all applications
We can say with confidence that older Gen Zs – those born roughly between 1996 and 2000 – are the most mobile workers in the world.
This stands to reason. With a few years of employment under their belts, these workers have typically hit the eligibility threshold for skilled work visas in many countries. They’re no longer an unknown quantity to employers looking to reassign trusted staff to other wings of the business for secondments and other assignments.
They’re also least likely to be tied down by family obligations or property ownership. But the practicalities are only one part of why today’s young adults are so overrepresented in companies’ relocation programs.
Relocation: the personal growth engine
Global Mobility is always an emotive matter. Leaving behind your friends and family to take up new opportunities overseas is a major life moment for anyone.
For values-driven Gen Zs keen to sate an appetite for adventure, relocations aren’t just a perk of the job. They’re part and parcel of what a job should be.
This ties in with another generational priority: the relentless pursuit of personal growth. A 2023 study found that 83% of Gen Zs considered themselves job-hoppers.
But it would be a mistake to think they were just mercenary movers. In fact, they were much more likely to cite personal development as the determining factor in their decisions than money.
As any Global Mobility specialist knows, international assignments are rocket fuel for a career. When employees get the chance to embed themselves in a new country with a new team, they learn competencies and soft skills that they carry with them for their rest of their lives.
This gives teams a huge opportunity to prove their strategic value to their organisations. By 2030, Gen Z will make up a third of the global workforce. Companies that can point to a strong cross-border mobility function will be best placed to win the war for talent.
The global dimensions
There’s a very important qualifier here: Gen Z’s appetite for relocation is not very evenly distributed. In fact, it’s primarily a phenomenon of the developing world.
In BCG’s Decoding Global Talent 2024 report, analysis of over 150,000 professionals across 188 countries tells of a stark geographical divide in people’s willingness to relocate.
- Middle East & Africa: 64% are open to relocating for work.
- South Asia: 58% express willingness to relocate.
- Sub-Saharan Africa: 52% show openness to mobility.
- North America: Mobility willingness drops sharply to just 16%.
- Europe: Slightly lower at 10%.
This report does not break down these attitudes by age. But it is unlikely that Gen Z would be immune from such pronounced discrepancies.
Other datasets would also support this analysis. In 2024, as global migration levels hit record levels and hundreds of thousands arrived in Britain, the UK recorded the lowest ever number of British nationals emigrating. Workers in the rich world, regardless of age, are clearly less interested in moving around than their peers in the developing world.
That’s not to say that shorter-term relocations aren’t still a good enticement for younger employees in the West. But for these employees, relocation should be a lever towards something else: promotion, personal growth or a more meaningful experience of work.
What Global Mobility teams can do with this data
Generationalism has always been something of a pseudoscience. Every age cohort is a disparate web of billions of individuals, with wildly differing habits and preferences. We all lose when we draw arbitrary dividing lines based on age.
Our data does show a clear willingness among Gen Zs in aggregate to migrate for work. Yet some might say that the huge regional imbalance in attitudes makes any speculation on intrinsic generational traits moot. People from poorer countries moving to richer countries is nothing new. Nor is the fact that they do so at an age when they have less to leave behind.
What’s changed is the ease of doing so. Digital media has given everyone a window into life in other countries – and people often like what they see. Accessible air travel lowers the barriers to getting there. Mobility technology like our platform own makes visa processing faster and less arduous.
Given the developing world boasts the highest economic and population growth rates, it makes sense for companies to focus their recruitment efforts on the world’s new powerhouses. And when doing so, make as much of your Global Mobility offering as you can.
To find out where to look for the most promising young talent, download our recent report on the Top 10 Digital Talent Centres.
