Posted on 08/09/2021 10:53:04 AM PDT by Brookhaven
If you don’t spend your days on TikTok or Reddit, you may be blissfully unaware of a growing movement urging people to quit their jobs en masse this fall.
It’s called “The Great Resignation of 2021,” and for businesses already struggling to attract workers back to the office it could spell very bad news.
The social media trend coincides with broader disruptions in the labor market. Monster, a global employment website, recently reported 95 percent of employees are considering changing jobs. This is on top of the 4 million people who already followed through and resigned in April.
The country’s labor market is in a precarious position. The policies of the pandemic spurred the sharpest economic contraction in US history, millions lost their jobs and are still out of work, and yet businesses have been unable to fill their open positions.
The Great Resignation
On top of all this, reports indicate employers may soon face more disruption from what is being described as “the Great Resignation,” as millions of workers prepare to say, “I quit.”
According to TikTok user @Katieyowyow, a recruiter with over 300,000 followers on the platform, as many as 1 in 4 employees are planning to leave their job this fall. These employees, she says, intend to spend the summer months using their vacation days and enjoying the benefits of full-time employment before they jump ship and turn in their notice in autumn.
Daniel Zhao, a labor economist with the employment website Glassdoor said, "We haven't seen anything quite like the situation we have today."
Why is this happening? A multitude of reasons. Large numbers of Americans transitioned to working from home last year, and now that they’ve enjoyed the quality of life increase that remote work brings they are unwilling to return to the monotony of a desk-job. Lots of managers have announced plans to bring employees back to the office this fall, and it seems many people are simply unwilling to do so. And given the plethora of open jobs at the moment, the best workers have their pick of employment.
Other workers used their down time during the pandemic to develop new skills or passions, and now they want to find roles that allow them to incorporate those interests into their day to day lives. Some are seeking roles that require less of their time out of a desire to allocate more time to their families or children. And then there are those who simply just don’t want to work.
Jeremy Golembiewski is one example of a worker who has already taken the plunge. The 26-year veteran of the restaurant industry realized just how much of his children’s childhood he was missing while he was furloughed over the pandemic. He decided it was no longer acceptable to spend so much time away from them and quit his job in search of a more steady schedule and a 40 hour work week.
Angel Perkins is another case in point. She resigned her role as a recruiter during the pandemic over health concerns, and in the meantime she launched an online jewelry business. She quickly replaced her income and found the financial and time freedom her old work would not afford.
An Employee’s Market
The reality is it’s an employee’s market. There’s never been a better time to job hunt. The Labor Department recently reported 9.3 million job openings and there are hiring signs everywhere you look.
Taking that into consideration, it makes sense that workers might be experiencing more freedom and confidence in the job market than usual—leading them to make bold career moves they would be less likely to take under other circumstances.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Good employees should seek the greatest quality of life, highest pay, and the ability to spend their time on work they find meaningful. Those are strong incentives in a free market that encourage a good work ethic, innovation, and efficiency.
What this means is that employers will have to compete with attractive incentives to earn the placement of the best employees, or even to fill openings in general. Much of this can be seen in a favorable light. Competition is a good thing, and market incentives that encourage employers to offer better working arrangements create a better quality of life for all (and higher productivity in general).
Perverse Incentives
Unfortunately, though, trends like “The Great Resignation” are far from being fueled by market incentives and demands alone. Rather, they are the repercussion of bad, big government policies that have severely tampered with the market for the past year.
The federal government has continued to send an increased amount of unemployment benefits to workers, even as the businesses they shut down struggle to open back up. Workers are responding to this perverse incentive in entirely predictable ways, choosing to stay home or work less—often for more pay than they were able to earn in the workforce—for an extended period of time.
Obviously, without the guarantee of a cushy taxpayer-funded unemployment payment, many of these employees would not have the luxury of simply quitting their jobs. They would have to increase their value if they wanted to demand new working arrangements on the market, or build their way into new career paths while still holding down employment in the meantime.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy paraphrased a quote of F.A. Hayek’s like this, “no one can decide that people won’t respond in predictable ways to perverse incentives unintentionally created by a central plan, in the same way that no one can decide that insects will not become resistant to an insecticide.”
Central planners were warned that these kinds of problems would result from their policies, and yet they persisted anyway. As a result, it is likely we will all continue to see supply shortages and an increase in the price of goods and services.
I know several people who say they are not going back to the office, even though their company has told them they will go back in the fall.
Notice they used the example of a "working dad" who found fulfilment taking care of his kids, but I guarantee you there will be a plethora or working moms who, having become accustomed to being with their kids all day, will not go back to the office (and put their kids in day care).
As the article points out, it's an employee's market at the moment. People in all kinds of jobs (from office to blue-collar to fast food) will be looking for better working conditions and/or better pay. Given the market, they might get it quickly.
Unless they’re moving into a better job and which has the potential for advancement, they are making a huge mistake.
The last of the boomers ( most have a work ethic ) are retiring. Why not.
If you quit, kiss unemployment goodbye.
And so goes discretionary spending... trickle, trickle, trickle...
Many dual-income households can no doubt get by with just 1 for a while.
Not going back to the office this fall?
Where are these people?
I don’t know anyway who is still working from home who didn’t work from home before 2020.
Sounds to me like a bunch of blue state lamers looking to stir their own pots again. Good. Make more chaos for yourselves.
Most red states have been back to work for nearly a year.
Add companies mandating the vaccine. Many will walk over that. Where I work 2 have already said they “would live under a bridge before they took the vax.” I figure between 35-50% are unvaccinated. How many will leave is the big question if the mandate comes.
> I know several people who say they are not going back to the office, even though their company has told them they will go back in the fall.
That includes me.
It’s an employee’s market... for the moment.
We have been transitioning to the Internet Era for some time. Covid accelerated, temporarily, that move. But we’re just not ready as a world to do that forever...yet. Give it another 20 years.
Another reason for gov to step in and take more control
A friend in tech is still working from home. Company is not going back until at least January. They’ve pushed the date back a couple times already.
If you're an employee, try to find a job that requires the least amount of work for the most money you can get.
The DemoMarxists aren’t helping matters any by continuing to give them inflated unemployment checks and eviction protection which they of course want to extend.
“If you’re an employer, try to hire the most competent and productive worker for the least amount of money.
If you’re an employee, try to find a job that requires the least amount of work for the most money you can get”.
That’s nothing new because it’s been happening for years.
I haven’t had a job for nearly three years because I cannot find an employer who will hire someone my age (I’m 62) and pay him what he’s worth. Is that about to change?
One would hope without hesitation it is the man who thinks he is "The Italian Stallion"...................
In my office in Houston, we were allowed to work from home for one month in 2020; basically the last week of March thru the last week of April. We've been back in the office ever since April 27, 2020.
Add companies mandating the vaccine. Many will walk over that.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If just 10% of employees would band together & tell an employer to drop the jab mandate or they’re walking, it might have an effect. Two anecdotal stories:
My SIL gave her 2 weeks notice ... reason: spend more time with family because she was required to work weekends/holidays. She has to work a certain number of hours to get commission. Boss called her in - why are you resigning? When she told the reason, she was offered a part-time job ... hourly requirements to be eligible for commission were cut back. Schedule? Literally told her to tell them what she wanted & she would get it. Getting good people is so hard, they were willing to do “whatever” to keep her.
At the cash register at Lowe’s - cashier (friendly guy) asked a contractor “how’s it going?” The contractor said he cannot find help - put an ad out for $25/hour .... no takers.
bkmk
Aren’t TikTok and Reddit propaganda outlets for CCP? Seems like it could be a manipulation to replace workers with CCP agents. Or not.
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