Although Honest Jobs doesn't usually quote Snopes, we appreciate their help in dispelling the myth that "Nobody wants to work." Their Fact Check confirmed that that phrase has been used since at least 1894.
Newspaper snippets from Snopes' fact check:
MarketWatch also posted a great article on the topic: ‘Nobody wants to work anymore’ has been said for 100 years. It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now.
"Nobody wants to work anymore" is a term that has been used for over 130 years and remains false.
Paul Fairie detailed in his viral Twitter thread that the phrase dates back to 1894 in the Rooks County Record. A letter writer was upset about striking coal miners and their potential impact on the coal supply for the following winter.
Flash forward to 2022, and the phrase "No one wants to work" resurfaced in an article from Forbes (The Why Behind the Great Resignation). The piece began: According to a new survey released by TinyPulse, 1 in 5 executive leaders agree with this statement: "No one wants to work."
This is not a harmless myth.
In our work at Honest Jobs, we know there is a forgotten population of job seekers who are eager to work, but overlooked or excluded due to other harmful myths.
Honest Jobs has developed a platform where this untapped pool of eager job seekers all have one thing in common: A criminal record. The truth is that A LOT of people WANT to work. Don't believe that tired myth.
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