Don’t read too much into the statistics. The Department of Labor reported that 4 million Americans quit their jobs in April. This was a record that led some to label this moment the “Great Resignation.”
But what we are seeing is a snapshot of a very unique moment, one in which a particularly large number of people are questioning their career priorities at once. With the whole economy coming back from a major shift, many workers are choosing to use their “free move” right now rather than return to their pre-pandemic paths.
The return of in-person work has made this time a breaking point for those people who stuck out the pandemic in jobs they didn’t really want to go back to full-time. As kids return to school, events come back, and consumers resume their usual spending habits, industries like hospitality that saw waves of resignations will probably attract workers as they did before, even if a portion of their previous workers have left for other fields.
For some, 2020 was a major moment of reflection on what their work lives were adding to or taking away from their personal lives. Realizations about wanting a job with fewer hours or no commute may affect the long-term career decisions of a certain percentage of those who quit this spring, but the job market will ultimately adapt to fill their empty positions with other workers. The underlying financial needs that lead people to work mean that a mass exodus from the workforce is highly improbable. And for every person who decided over the last year that working in a restaurant isn’t for them, there may be another who just discovered that it is.
Comments are closed.