Ever wonder what your workforce of the future will be like? Well, here’s a poll that gives you a glimpse of that next workforce generation, and it’s a pretty frightening view.

Today, the latest Junior Achievement/Deloitte Teen Ethics Survey was released, and the findings should be frightening to anyone who is counting on the next generation of workers to drive their organization ahead. Harris Interactive did the actual survey of American teens ages 13-18, and here are a few of the findings:

• 71 percent of teens say they feel fully prepared to make ethical decisions when they enter the workforce.

• 38 percent of that group believe it is sometimes necessary to cheat, plagiarize, lie or even behave violently in order to succeed. In fact, some 23 percent of all teens surveyed think violence toward another person is acceptable on some level. Of those who think so, the justifications for violence include settling an argument (27 percent) and revenge (20 percent).

• 24 percent of all teens surveyed think cheating on a test is acceptable on some level, and more than half of those teens (54 percent) say their personal desire to succeed is the rationale.

• Of the teens who think plagiarism is acceptable on some level, 37 percent think a personal desire to succeed is justification, and that number climbs to 51 percent among the students who feel an overwhelming pressure to succeed.

• 27 percent of all teens surveyed said it’s not fair for an employer to suspend or fire employees for unethical behavior outside of their jobs.

• 57 percent of all teens surveyed believe it is not fair for employers to make hiring or firing decisions based on material they have posted to the Internet, and another 19 percent weren’t sure if it was fair or not.

•  47 percent of teens said it was acceptable on some level to illegally download music without paying for it, but only 5 percent said it was acceptable to steal something from a store.

“The high percentages of teenagers who freely admit that unethical behavior can be justified is alarming,” said David Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and assistant professor (adjunct) of business ethics, who reviewed the findings and is quoted in today’s press release from Junior Achievement. “It suggests an attitude of ethical relativism and rationalization of whatever actions serve one’s immediate needs and purposes.”

Not surprisingly, the survey also found that despite self-confidence in their own ethical behavior, teens take a pessimistic view of their peers. When asked to evaluate the behavior of a number of groups—business leaders, religious leaders, doctors, lawyers, police officers, teachers, professional athletes and firefighters—teens ranked high school students second to last. In their view, according to the survey, only politicians are more unethical than they are.

I’ve written here before about all the gloom-and-doom talk regarding the potential shortage of workers due to the retirement of the baby-boom generation. Lots of people think this upcoming talent shortage is a given, but I don’t buy it, as I said in “The Talent-Shortage Myth” and again in “The ‘Talent-Shortage Myth,’ Revisited”.

This latest study of teenagers should not only be a glimpse into what we should expect in our future workforce, but a sober realization that maybe having the baby boomers hang around and continue working for a bit longer isn’t such a bad idea.