Why are postdocs and PhDs so fragile right now?

I have my hypotheses, but I just had a postdoc break down into tears when I (very politely, but also very directly), told them that it would be good if they finished ONE manuscript as lead this YEAR, and that I agreed with their assessment that their weak publication record is probably the reason they’re not getting interviews.

Note: they haven’t actually helped finish any manuscripts. They’re constantly late on every task. The rest of my lab has had to pick up the slack and it’s created problems. I’ve spoken to them about productivity multiple times. I’ve also stripped them of most other responsibilities because they make excuses and say a task that should take a week will take a month. It then takes them 6 weeks to do poorly. I’m not a micromanager and have no interest in breaking a task they should know how to do into tiny manageable pieces. That’s their job.

This is just one extreme example. I’ve also noticed that PhD students can’t take any negative feedback no matter who the messenger is, and no matter how soft the message is relayed. They want multiple extensions on simple work, and turn in work that is pretty bad.

Does anyone else see similar patterns in their postdocs or students?