Labor market | The “Great Resignation” of the Americans

More than 25 million Americans quit their jobs in the last six months of 2021. A “Great Quit” caused by great questioning.

Richard Hetu
special collaboration

The advent of questioning

Like everyone else, Ranee Soundara, a former marketing product manager for a New York-based technology company, had heard of burnout and post-traumatic stress. But she would never have thought that doctors would one day diagnose her with these two forms of mental suffering.

“They basically explained to me that a lot of people, especially during the pandemic, go through different mental situations that impact their health. It’s really the kind of thing that got me thinking,” she said in a recent interview.

The 37-year-old bachelor received her diagnosis in January 2021. But she did not immediately give up the demanding job that made her spend sleepless nights from which she emerged with the urge to vomit. She first transformed her life in order to save as much money as possible.

Then, in June 2021, she handed her employer a resignation letter announcing her upcoming departure. She thus swelled the ranks of the approximately 4.1 million Americans who left their jobs in July 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. She also added her name to a heavy trend.

In the last six months of 2021, 25.6 million Americans quit their jobs, a phenomenon the media dubbed the “Great Quit”.

Anthony Klotz, a management professor at Texas A&M University, coined the phrase in May 2021 during an interview with Bloomberg. He used it in predicting that Americans would start quitting their jobs en masse when their bosses forced them back into the office. The expression has remained, even if the phenomenon it describes is far from being limited to the only explanation mentioned by the professor. Ranee Soundara herself embodies an important feature of this heavy trend.

The “big question mark”

“People talk about the Great Resignation, but for me it’s more the great questioning of my priorities and my values,” she says. One of my priorities was to take care of my mental health, take a real vacation for the first time in four years and think about the next step in my career. Since her resignation, Ranee Soundara has spent eight weeks in Florence, Italy, where she studied painting and sculpture. She also spent time with her mother, who lives in Seattle, before resuming her search for a new job. But not just any.

“I have a lot of friends who are going through the same experience as mine,” she says.

Aged 38, Joseph Jalbert deplores the “crazy hours” that punctuated his life in New York as executive producer for a television channel devoted to cooking. “I was basically on call 24/7,” he said in an interview. To escape this infernal tempo, he accepted a job in Atlanta allowing him to put his past experiences at the service of a start-up company in the health sector. But his work rate was no less hellish than before. Hence his decision to quit his job last September. His wife, on the other hand, continued to work for the same company.

“Fortunately, we were in a good enough financial position that I didn’t have to have another job lined up before I left the other one,” the Massachusetts native said. In recent months, Joseph Jalbert has been able to devote time to projects close to his heart, including adopting a puppy and starting creative projects.

“A time to breathe”

“I started writing a children’s book. I have a bunch of ideas for TV shows that I never had time to put down on paper before, for lack of time,” he says. Speaking of the last few months, Joseph Jalbert will add: “It has been a time to simply breathe. »

No sector is really spared by the Great Resignation.

According to data from the professional social network LinkedIn, nearly 1.5 million jobs are still to be filled in the United States, including 4.4% of jobs in the education sector, 6% of jobs in retail, 8 % of jobs in the health sector and 9% of jobs in hotels and restaurants.

This lack of personnel has made it easier for some Americans to make business decisions.

Jordan, a New Yorker whose last name we withhold at her request, is part of this group. A lawyer by training, she left her job in a marketing company last year, wanting to get away from the world of 9 to 5 and get closer to the acting career of her dreams.

So when a friend of hers asked her if she knew anyone who wanted to work at a big restaurant in Chelsea, Manhattan, she said, “Me. »

“I trusted my friend, remembers Jordan. He told me: “It’s a great place to work, very flexible. Everyone is a singer, a dancer or an actor. I’ve never had a problem if I have to leave for an audition.” Months later, Jordan doesn’t regret quitting her old job to take one that better matches the lifestyle she wants to lead. “With the pandemic, people are realizing that life is too short,” she says. We really don’t know when our last day will come. »

“Employees are in control”

The labor market holds no secrets for Danny Nelms. In 2021, the organization of which he is president, the Work Institute, interviewed 28,000 resigning employees to find out the reason for their departure. He in turn agreed to be interviewed by The Press to discuss their findings.

How do you explain the “Great Resignation” that is so much talked about in the United States?

The Great Resignation was fueled by a number of factors. It is evident that the global pandemic has paved the way for a significant change in the way the workplace is organized today. I think a lot of employees discovered that there was a range of opportunities that they could take advantage of. It is clear that the recovery of the economy from the crisis caused by the pandemic has been much faster than during a normal recession. Employees are in control. And if we don’t do everything we can to find a way to retain them and motivate them, they will find other opportunities.

What are the most common reasons employees give for quitting?

We found a couple of things and now we have enough data to be able to see trends. It is evident that in 2020, during the initial wave of the pandemic, we saw a considerable increase in resignations related to health or family reasons. Many people were trying to avoid being exposed to COVID-19 or exposing family members. Others had children at home. Many more have decided to move up their retirement.

However, from 2021 we have seen a significant trend change. Most of the departures were related to career reasons. People saw other opportunities for development, for growth. Some have decided to completely change careers. And I think part of that was fueled by the pandemic and the realization that there were a lot of great opportunities.

What about pecuniary reasons?

We have seen an increase in the number of people leaving for financial reasons, but I like to point out that there is still less than one in ten employees who say that money is the main reason or the root cause of their decision to leave.

Where do you get this data from?

In 2021, we conducted more than 28,000 exit interviews with employees in the United States and Canada. This is where we got this data from. The reality is that when people quit their jobs, they usually get better pay. But this is not the primary cause of their decision to leave.

How do employers go about retaining their employees?

This is where employee voice becomes so important. Employers need to listen to their employees. I think they need to put tools and processes in place to be able to meet the needs and requirements of their staff. There’s definitely a lot of pressure right now to implement things like retention interviews. And I would say they are absolutely essential right now.

So we literally talk to individuals or employees about what will improve their situation, what their long-term goals are, what will help them deal with certain circumstances. At the start of the pandemic, enormous efforts were made in this direction. I think we’ve moved away from that to some extent and I think that requirement will be permanent.

Generally speaking, are employers doing enough to retain their employees?

I think employers tend to be complacent. They have long tolerated high employee turnover, knowing that they only needed to post a job to get a lot of applicants. But supply and demand are not what they used to be. And I think this problem will last for a long time.