Text-speak and Twitter reductionism is also letting our young hopefuls down, a similar number complained, and literacy and numeracy skills are so poor among university leavers, that they have to be topped up in the workplace.
If there was ever a moment that laid to rest the image of the eager besuited graduate, plucked fresh from a university milk-round for a job-for-life, and confirmed its replacement with a casually dressed slacker, strolling into work late, focused on his phone, only to complain there's no room on the office bean bag, this must surely be it.
Indeed, when British marketing guru Simon Sinek gave his blistering analysis of everything that's wrong with Generation Y last year, it hit such a nerve that it went viral within a day and has now racked up more than a million hits on You Tube.
With devastating clarity, he painted a picture of how a generation given everything for nothing has created a crisis of unmet expectations in the workplace: "They're thrust in the real world and in an instant they find out they're not special, their mums can't get them a promotion, that you get nothing for coming last - and by the way, you can't just have it because you want it."
Be Wiser Insurance group chief officer, Crescens George is one of the business leaders bemoaning the cost of "graduate ego-massaging time".
George recalls one young man he recruited a few years ago straight from university onto an accelerated future talent programme on a good wage. Far from being keen to learn the job from the bottom up, George said the young man let it be known that dealing with customers in the call centre was too far beneath him to contemplate.
"We were almost on the verge of terminating his employment contract. But he had good analytical skills, so we saw the future potential, supported him in learning the basics and today he is in a relatively successful and relevant role."
George adds: "You would expect that university education would tease some basic business etiquette, and certainly communication skills. He did not communicate, besides showing a sheer lack of interest in the job. He was not willing to make the sacrifice of learning through the ranks.
"I can only attribute this to the stress of £50k ($89,000) debt [from student loans] hanging over his head and finding out the real world of work is different to how it's painted in the lecture rooms. Had we not had to waste 12-14 months on unnecessary graduate ego massaging time, I am sure this employee would have tasted his success a little sooner, and opened doors to leadership opportunities by now."
Professor Cary Cooper of the Manchester Business School agrees with the CBI that some young graduates do seem to be lacking in social skills: "They have been raised on Facebook and texting. The way you develop your social skills is by face-to-face interaction and this generation has had the least of that."
But he maintains young graduates are every bit as enthusiastic and eager to learn as previous generations. They just have little interest in kowtowing to traditional management structures and are viewed with suspicion by bosses because they don't expect to stay at the same company for long.
"The new graduates have seen older employees, who have been at their companies for many years, dismissed and treated like disposable assets. They are trying to protect themselves. So in other words, that tradional contract of employment has been broken for that generation. They don't have the same company loyalties that were expected in the past.
"Senior managers are hanging on to the old ways and expect these young people to act and behave in the way they did when they were picked up at their university milk rounds in the 80s. As a result, I don't think employers know how to use them. But if you push them to the best of their capabilities, they will still come up with the goodies."
Averil Leimon, leadership psychologist with the White Water Group, agrees millennials "certainly want different things" - and this could be making us uncomfortable.
"They want a more balanced life. They have often seen one or both of their parents working flat out and not coming home 'til late, knackered after the commute. They want to find ways to incorporate real relationships, be hands-on in bringing up their kids, keep up external interests and be fit and healthy.
"They grew up with technology so they know how to work remotely and cannot see why sitting in a building is required. They don't 'go to work', they just work. Technology is integral to their lives so they do not split home and work as rigorously as previous generations. They seek close and rewarding relationships at work, not just in their personal lives."
Indeed, some business leaders are already proclaiming we need to be more like millennials, instead of trying to making them more like us.
6Retail guru Mary Portas now describes herself as a "50-something millennial, or what you might call a slashy," and sees nothing wrong with Generation Y demanding the work-life balance their parents never had.
"I'm a businesswoman/TV presenter/ author/charity retailer/mother/wife/ DJ/anything that comes along that inspires me," she recently told the Telegraph; as a result, she has now reshaped her company in line with that thinking. Her management and board "now have the right to take as much holiday as they like, when they like, set their own hours and take open-ended maternity leave".
So why are condemning young people for wanting the balanced lifestyle we never achieved?
Leimon says: "I was recently working with an investment banker. He told me: 'Millennials have no values'. "I said: 'Gosh, really? Don't you mean they have different values?'
"He then inveighed about his son, who has rejected his father's absent, workaholic, money-focused way of life for something different and more personally rewarding.
"Indeed, if we were to design a business all over again to suit human nature, allowing people the chance to use their strengths for fair reward and have a satisfying home life, wouldn't we want this, too?"
