With the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, November of 2021 recorded a whopping 6.3 million separations (what the Bureau defines as “quits, layoffs and discharges and other separations. Quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee. Therefore, the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs.”). Of these 6.3 million separations, 4.5 million are recorded as quits themselves, the majority occurring in accommodation and food services, health care and social assistance, transportation, warehousing and utilities.
With a final end of 2021 tally to be released by the beginning of February 2022, one can only expect to see these numbers of quits rising and rising in the midst of what is formally and informally recognized across economics, politics and culture as ‘The Great Resignation.’
Coined by Dr. Anthony Klotz, an associate professor at Texas A&M University, the Great Resignation represents a culmination of the following trends: a backlog of resignations, heightened levels of burnout, shift in identity/pandemic epiphanies and the inability to remain working from home.
Encased in and contributing to each of these trends, and any unmentioned ones, are the obvious pains and strains of the pandemic often credited to these national (and even international) mass quits. Yet even before the pandemic, high employee turnover was trending, and employers were warned to brace themselves for this new normal.
Workers are physically, mentally and psychologically exhausted, with many opening their eyes to the antiquated nature of the 9-5 or the general 8-12 hour workday. Low wages in combination with abusive employers, lack of pandemic protection and protocols and more lend to an endless list of worker grievances. This Mother Jones article collective is a particular example of personal perspectives from the Big Quit.
Although these resignations were occurring in mass before the pandemic, the pandemic especially highlighted an American legacy of disregard and disrespect of the working citizen. As a result, workers are installing their own legacies of intolerance, of a new era of workers’ rights and of human dignity, of unprecedented changes occurring now and surely to arrive in this next decade. “What we’re starting to see right now is — what I’m hoping is — the redrawing of boundaries, where people are saying ‘I no longer want to sacrifice myself so completely for a job,” says author Rahaf Harfoush.
So what changes can the American employer and employee expect as we head deeper into the 2020s? According to Forbes, it’s as “simple as treating people right.”
- Organizations, small businesses and corporations will be pushed “to prioritize employee appreciation, communication, inclusion, and flexibility.” Why? According to a Microsoft report, “Leaders are out of touch with employees and need a wake-up call.“
- Remote work and hybrid options are here to stay. According to a late 2021 Gallup Poll, 91% of workers hope to remain remote even after the pandemic as nearly half of full-time employees remained working remote part or full time in September 2021.
- Raising wages is necessary and inevitable. Wage pressure continues for small businesses and companies across the United States are budgeting a 3.9% average wage increase for 2022.
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