Markets
Millennials are Investing With a Purpose, and It’s Changing Wealth Management
Millennials Investing With a Purpose
22% of Total AUM in U.S. are Sustainable Investments
The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.
If you’ve been paying attention to your social media feeds or most news outlets, it should be pretty clear to you that millennials seem to be “killing” just about everything – from Applebee’s to the entire golf industry.
While this “killing” meme is obviously a ridiculous hyperbole, there is at least some truth to it.
As the largest generation in American history, millennials are gaining sway and buying power quickly – and businesses that do not take heed to their preferences could feel the burn. Even worse, over the long run, some industries and businesses may go the way of the dodo.
The Rise of Sustainable Investing
The latest thing that millennials are “killing”? It’s the act of investing solely just for financial returns.
There’s mounting evidence that millennials are putting their money towards investments that have another component: making a positive societal impact. This practice is called sustainable investing, and it considers criteria around environmental, social, and corporate governance for investments in addition to the aspect of financial returns.
Put another way, many millennials want to put their money towards companies and funds that are helping to do things like alleviate poverty, protect the environment, or further human rights around the world. They want to generate ROI in both financial and social spheres.
Proof in the Pudding
Over the last decade or so, the amount of assets under management (AUM) for sustainable investments has ballooned to a whopping $8.72 trillion in the U.S. for 2016:
Since 2014, that’s a 33% increase – and even more interestingly, sustainable investments now make up 22% of the $40.3 trillion of total AUM in the United States.
Why is sustainable investing so popular among millennials? Here’s a rundown, mostly coming from recent research from Morgan Stanley:
- Millennials are putting money in sustainable investments at a rate 2x higher than average.
- 86% of millennial investors say they are “very interested” or “interested” in sustainable investing.
- 61% have made at least one sustainable investment action in the last year.
- 75% think their investments can influence climate change.
- 84% think their investments can help fight poverty.
And with a $30 trillion wealth transfer coming to millennials over the coming decades, this preference of using investments as a vehicle for creating positive social change is more than just a trend.
The Big Question
There does remain one big question that millennials and wealth managers are focused on: do sustainable investments provide similar financial returns to regular investments?
Millennials are willing to take a risk that they don’t – in fact, Morgan Stanley found that 59% of millennials believe that there is a trade-off between social impact and financial returns.
Interestingly, some data is already providing a counterpoint to this narrative. In a report from Morningstar and WSJ, for example, it’s shown that funds focused on sustainable investments have offered superior performance to non-sustainable investments over periods of one, three, five, and 10 years.
Whether this stays true for the future remains to be seen – but it will be an important and fun metric to watch.
Technology
Ranked: America’s 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs Since 2020
How bad are the current layoffs in the tech sector? This visual reveals the 20 biggest tech layoffs since the start of the pandemic.

Ranked: America’s 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs This Decade
The events of the last few years could not have been predicted by anyone. From a global pandemic and remote work as the standard, to a subsequent hiring craze, rising inflation, and now, mass layoffs.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, essentially laid off the equivalent of a small town just weeks ago, letting go of 12,000 people—the biggest layoffs the company has ever seen in its history. Additionally, Amazon and Microsoft have also laid off 10,000 workers each in the last few months, not to mention Meta’s 11,000.
This visual puts the current layoffs in the tech industry in context and ranks the 20 biggest tech layoffs of the 2020s using data from the tracker, Layoffs.fyi.
The Top 20 Layoffs of the 2020s
Since 2020, layoffs in the tech industry have been significant, accelerating in 2022 in particular. Here’s a look at the companies that laid off the most people over the last three years.
Rank | Company | # Laid Off | % of Workforce | As of |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | 12,000 | 6% | Jan 2023 | |
#2 | Meta | 11,000 | 13% | Nov 2021 |
#3 | Amazon | 10,000 | 3% | Nov 2021 |
#4 | Microsoft | 10,000 | 5% | Jan 2023 |
#5 | Salesforce | 8,000 | 10% | Jan 2023 |
#6 | Amazon | 8,000 | 2% | Jan 2023 |
#7 | Uber | 6,700 | 24% | May 2020 |
#8 | Cisco | 4,100 | 5% | Nov 2021 |
#9 | IBM | 3,900 | 2% | Jan 2023 |
#10 | 3,700 | 50% | Nov 2021 | |
#11 | Better.com | 3,000 | 33% | Mar 2022 |
#12 | Groupon | 2,800 | 44% | Apr 2020 |
#13 | Peloton | 2,800 | 20% | Feb 2022 |
#14 | Carvana | 2,500 | 12% | May 2022 |
#15 | Katerra | 2,434 | 100% | Jun 2021 |
#16 | Zillow | 2,000 | 25% | Nov 2021 |
#17 | PayPal | 2,000 | 7% | Jan 2023 |
#18 | Airbnb | 1,900 | 25% | May 2020 |
#19 | Instacart | 1,877 | -- | Jan 2021 |
#20 | Wayfair | 1,750 | 10% | Jan 2023 |
Layoffs were high in 2020 thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, halting the global economy and forcing staff reductions worldwide. After that, things were steady until the economic uncertainty of last year, which ultimately led to large-scale layoffs in tech—with many of the biggest cuts happening in the past three months.
The Cause of Layoffs
Most workforce slashings are being blamed on the impending recession. Companies are claiming they are forced to cut down the excess of the hiring boom that followed the pandemic.
Additionally, during this hiring craze competition was fierce, resulting in higher salaries for workers, which is now translating in an increased need to trim the fat thanks to the current economic conditions.
Of course, the factors leading up to these recent layoffs are more nuanced than simple over-hiring plus recession narrative. In truth, there appears to be a culture shift occurring at many of America’s tech companies. As Rani Molla and Shirin Ghaffary from Recode have astutely pointed out, tech giants really want you to know they’re behaving like scrappy startups again.
Twitter’s highly publicized headcount reduction in late 2022 occurred for reasons beyond just macroeconomic factors. Elon Musk’s goal of doing more with a smaller team seemed to resonate with other founders and executives in Silicon Valley, providing an opening for others in tech space to cut down on labor costs as well. In just one example, Mark Zuckerberg hailed 2023 as the “year of efficiency” for Meta.
Meanwhile, over at Google, 12,000 jobs were put on the chopping block as the company repositions itself to win the AI race. In the words of Google’s own CEO:
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today… We have a substantial opportunity in front of us with AI across our products and are prepared to approach it boldly and responsibly.”– Sundar Pichai
The Bigger Picture in the U.S. Job Market
Beyond the tech sector, job openings continue to rise. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed a total of 11 million job openings across the U.S., an increase of almost 7% month-over-month. This means that for every unemployed worker in America right now there are 1.9 job openings available.
Additionally, hiring increased significantly in January, with employers adding 517,000 jobs. While the BLS did report a decrease in openings in information-based industries, openings are increasing rapidly especially in the food services, retail trade, and construction industries.
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