The Big Quit: The Incredible Number of Americans Who Quit Their Jobs in One Month

Employee resignations, more and more frequent in the United States.

The “great resignation” in figures

In October 4.2 million Americans left their jobs, equivalent to almost 3% of total employment, near the record figure. In the third quarter of last year, nearly 400,000 Britons moved from one job to another after handing in their resignation, the highest level ever. Employers may be responding to the threat of new departures as well. An index compiled by the Goldman Sachs bank indicates that the increase in wages in both countries is unusually large. A negative employment report in the United States, released on December 3, seems to confirm how difficult it has become to hire staff at the same time that there are an immense number of vacancies. The world’s largest economy added just 210,000 jobs in November, falling short of economists’ expectations of 550,000 jobs. Meanwhile, in other parts of the rich world it is more difficult to register a large number of resignations . Indeed, outside of the United States and Great Britain there are few signs that more people are quitting. In November 107,000 Canadians who had left their jobs in the last year had done so due to “dissatisfaction”, compared to 132,000 before the pandemic. In Japan the number of unemployed people who had left their previous job is close to the lowest point in history. There are signs of a small increase in resignations in Italy, but across the European Union the shift of people from work to leisure is lower than before the pandemic. And there are many places where there are scant signs that workers are restless, which could herald an increase in resignations. The number of labor disputes in Australia continues to trend downward. Collective disputes “are on their way to extinction” according to a recent edition of the Japan Labor Issues newspaper.

The pandemic has altered traditional labor relations in developed countries.

Why mass resignations occur

Other factors, then, likely help explain the decline in the labor force. Many people still say that they are afraid of getting Covid-19 and therefore are avoiding public spaces, for example. Although the wave of resignations is largely an Anglo-American phenomenon, is there any evidence that people who quit do so because they no longer want to work? Despite what the messages on Reddit say, this does not seem to be the case. In Britain a tenth of workers say they would like a job with shorter hours and less pay, but this is in line with the long-term average, notes The Economist. A recent study by Gallup in the United States suggests that “employee engagement”, a rough expression of job satisfaction, is close to its all-time high. That suggests two new explanations for the high rates of resignation. One has to do with job vacancies. When there are many positions available, people feel more confident to resign even if they like their job. They can also be recruited by other companies. There are a high number of vacancies right now in part because the pandemic created strong demand in new sectors. Analysis of the United States by Jason Furman of Harvard University and of Great Britain by Pawel Adrjan of Indeed, a job search site, suggest that job resignations are at the level one would expect given the number of vacancies. But Furman and Adrjan’s analysis may underestimate how inconspicuous the rise in resignations really is. In both countries, resignations fell during the worst of the pandemic in mid-2020. Many people who would have wanted to leave a job last year may now have gathered enough courage to do it. If you take into account these “postponed” resignations the recent increase looks even less unusual. Could a “great resignation” really emerge? It would probably require more radical cultural changes. Households would have to decide en masse that their future consumption needs and the amount of income needed to cover them would be substantially lower. That would mean not taking more vacations abroad, eating less in restaurants and buying fewer household appliances. It would also mean fewer gifts at Christmas. Anyone who has visited a store last Black Friday in Seattle or anywhere else in the United States recorded that no such dramatic change is underway.

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