RENOSY, an online Real estate investment service brand operated by our company, conducted a "Survey on New Employees' Attitudes Regarding Starting Salary and Investment" among 1,821 men and women aged 18 to 29 who are in their "first year as a worker" (those who entered the workforce in April 2024) and "second year as a worker" (those who entered the workforce in April 2023 and have been working for one year).

When people enter the workforce, they are asked to provide numerical answers to questions about how they would like to spend their first paycheck in their first year, how they ended up spending it in their second year, and how they would spend it if they could do it over again, with the percentage of how they would spend it being 100%. The average values for each item were calculated as follows:
・For living expenses, both the first year and second year respondents said they wanted to spend (spent) about 40% of their money.
・I want to spend (have spent) 20% to 30% on gifts. Of that amount, I spend more on family members than on myself.
A tendency was observed.

Among these, when comparing how first-year workers would like to spend their money from now on with how second-year workers would spend their money if they could do it over again, it turns out there is a difference of 4.6% for savings (first-year workers: 21.7% / second-year workers: 26.3%) and 7.5% for investment (first-year workers: 5.5% / second-year workers: 13.0%). In particular, investment has the largest difference compared to other items, with the figure doubling, suggesting that second-year workers look back on their first year and feel that "I should have used my first paycheck for investment."

When people in their first and second year of work were asked "What are your thoughts on asset formation?", it turned out that 41.0% of first-year workers had experience with asset formation (currently doing it or have done it in the past, but not now) and 55.7% of second-year workers had experience with asset formation. If we add those who are interested in asset formation to each group, the figures rise to 73.3% for first-year workers and 85.7% for second-year workers, which shows that over 70% of new Gen Z workers were interested in asset formation before they even entered society, and over 40% have actually started.

Based on the above questions, we asked first-year workers "how much do you want to save/invest during your first year as a new employee?" and second-year workers "how much have you actually saved/invested during your first year as a new employee?"

In terms of savings, the most common desired amount for first-year workers was "250,001 to 500,000 yen (21.0%)." For second-year workers, the most common amount they actually saved was "100,001 to 250,000 yen (16.3%)," while 14.9% answered "1,000,001 to 2,000,000 yen." A polarization was observed among second-year workers, with some people saving less than the desired amount for first-year workers and others saving more.

For investment, the most common answer was "I don't know/don't want to answer (23.6%)" for first-year workers, and "I haven't invested (29.6%)" for second-year workers. Considering the answers to the question about how they spent their first paycheck, second-year workers seem to think, "After a year, I wasn't able to allocate any money to investing. That's why I should have started investing with my first paycheck."

Finally, we asked second-year workers to answer the question, "If you could give one piece of advice to yourself on the day you received your first paycheck in your first year after graduating, what would you say?" When we analyzed the characteristics of the words used in the answers (n=200), we found that words such as "save," "spend," and "invest" tended to be used frequently.

In the free responses, the advice regarding savings was split between those encouraging people to save and those encouraging people to use the money for gifts etc. rather than saving, while the advice regarding investment was dominated by advice to start investing. Specifically, there was a lot of specific advice regarding money that could only be given by people who had spent a year as members of society, such as "Don't put it off, you should think about investing and other ways to build assets" and "It's better to keep your savings/account separate from your salary account."

・Survey period: March 18th (Mon) to March 25th (Mon) 2024
・Survey panel: Survey conducted by GA technologies Co., Ltd., using the survey panel of JustSystems Corporation (Fastask)
Eligible participants: Men and women who joined the workforce as new graduates in April 2024 (first year in the workforce), or men and women who joined the workforce as new graduates in April 2023 and have been working for one year (second year in the workforce)
・Number of respondents: 1,821 *Of these, 1,054 were in their first year of work, and 767 were in their second year of work
Survey method: Internet survey

RENOSY is an online Real estate investment service brand that leverages AI and other technologies. To make the purchase and sale of real estate more accessible as a means of asset building, Real estate investment provides online-based services from consideration to purchase and subsequent management and sale. No. 1 in Japan* in sales of existing condominium investments for four consecutive years from 2020.