This is CNBC video on The Great Resignation, from yesterday, October 19, 2021. As you have probably heard, millions of people have quit and resigned from their jobs over the past few months in 2021. Since the Spring, about 20 million people have quit jobs.
Depending who you listen to, about 20 million Americans have quit their jobs since either January or April. August 2021 hit a record, with 4.3 million people quitting their jobs. For context, there's about 160 million people counted in the "workforce," roughly the people aged 16-54 who have a job, or are recently unemployed (or were less than 6 months ago). There are a whole bunch of reasons for so many people quitting, and the group of quitters is spread from low wage service jobs to high paying tech jobs.
The biggest common denominator seems to be that millions of American workers are reassessing their lives, after the layoffs, shutdowns, and whatever the Covid-19 pandemic did to alter their daily activities on a personal level. Tens of millions of people are trying to figure out what they want out of their lives, and what makes life most worth living.
This is another aspect of the Big Freakin' Transition. WE had millions of people who have struggled increasingly hard to maintain a standard of living, as pay lagged behind inflation for the last 30-40 years. On the top end of the spectrum, plain old burnout, working too many hours, and high stress levels over extended periods of time seem to be more of a factor. People across the spectrum of work in the U.S. are trying to find more compelling work, higher paying work, more meaningful work, and work with more flexibility. This huge reshuffling is another part of old, Industrial Age systems and attitudes breaking down, and new, often tech enabled, attitudes, types of work, ways of working, and actual career paths, re-organizing, in an unexpected way.
Honestly, this huge, unexpected reorganizing of work itself, is refreshing to see. We have had a huge, growing mismatch of jobs that needed filled, and people looking for jobs. We've had lots of people unemployed as well as lots of jobs we didn't have people with the right skills to fill. The Great Resignation is that mismatch beginning to sort itself out. It will keep going for several months, most likely, and perhaps the next 2 to 4 years. This is people finding better work fits for their lives, and businesses finding better people for their jobs, and re-organizing how they operate, if they can't find people.
I've been wondering why mainstream business media has become so vocal about The Great Resignation. At the same time, content creators talking about a coming collapse of stocks, commodities, and real estate prices are being censored left and right on on social media and publishing platforms. One possible reason for mainstream media pushing The Great Resignation narrative is that as long as lots of workers are quitting jobs, major layoffs are likely to happen near as much. That's just a thought. We'll see how this all plays out. The Great Resignation isn't over. It's something happening right now, and we'll see how it plays out over time.
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