Franchise ownership among young people is up 163% since 2022.

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Gen Z is entering one of the toughest entry-level job markets in decades. But rather than jostle for scarce corporate roles, many are buying home-based service franchises, the kind you can run from your house and car. And 43% say they plan to start a business this year.

Scott Abbott, CEO of Five Star Franchising, sees it firsthand. At Card My Yard, the company’s yard-card rental brand, nearly half the owners are Gen Z or millennials. They prefer working from home and not having to shell out a lot of cash upfront. “The through-line is a defined system, a proven playbook and a model you can run without a storefront, a fleet, or heavy capital to get in,” Abbott says.

To a lot of young people, the college-to-corporate pipeline started looking iffy once AI began eyeing their future jobs, Abbott says. “They’d rather build something they own on a proven model than compete with 400 applicants for a job that may not exist in ten years.”

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