workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work

[pnwguy]

Those employers are just waiting for the GOP to take control and order people to work. Some of them are still sore about the end of slavery.

[Bact PhD]

More from that Slate piece (bold mine):

• “We are hemorrhaging talent, both salaried and production (factory workers) and can’t find/hire qualified applicants who will work for what previous employees were making. We’re going months without filling positions, mostly because our HR VP believes that we’re all overpaid . The market believes otherwise… I wonder who will win??”

I suspect there’s a LOT of that mindset in play. You have the FYIGM crowd that thinks that the whole rest of the world is grossly overpaid, and then you have those of a certain age who still believe it’s 25 years ago, hamburger was $1.39 a pound, and you could buy a new car for less than $16,000.

[LFC]

Republicans are whining that workers can't be found when it's clear they're just going to better jobs, which is exactly how the free market is supposed to work ... allegedly. Here's another reason for the Republicans to stop whining.

While millions of Americans are quitting their jobs in search of better employment, many of them are doing so in the hope of never having to work for someone else ever again.

The pandemic has, at least for the time being, halted — and perhaps reversed — a decadeslong decline in the pace of entrepreneurship. Americans applied for a record 5.4 million business ID numbers in 2021, according to census data that goes back to 2004. 2022 is already on track to be a record year as well, according to projections from QuickBooks. While data on true business formations is available only through 2019, growth in ID number applications is closely related to actual business formations. Other datasets, including Bureau of Labor Statistics data that shows a rise in self-employed people as well as data from a number of companies that offer small business tools, bear out the trend toward record entrepreneurism.

The recent growth in new businesses has big implications for the Americans starting them and the people who used to employ them, as well as for the future of government policy and the resilience of the economy in general.

This is exactly what they GOPers say they wanted. New entrepreneurs! Competition! The power of free markets! Now that it's happening they're whining. Hmmmmm.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 26, 2022 18:44:25 GMT LFC said:

Republicans are whining that workers can't be found when it's clear they're just going to better jobs, which is exactly how the free market is supposed to work ... allegedly. Here's another reason for the Republicans to stop whining.

While millions of Americans are quitting their jobs in search of better employment, many of them are doing so in the hope of never having to work for someone else ever again.

The pandemic has, at least for the time being, halted — and perhaps reversed — a decadeslong decline in the pace of entrepreneurship. Americans applied for a record 5.4 million business ID numbers in 2021, according to census data that goes back to 2004. 2022 is already on track to be a record year as well, according to projections from QuickBooks. While data on true business formations is available only through 2019, growth in ID number applications is closely related to actual business formations. Other datasets, including Bureau of Labor Statistics data that shows a rise in self-employed people as well as data from a number of companies that offer small business tools, bear out the trend toward record entrepreneurism.

The recent growth in new businesses has big implications for the Americans starting them and the people who used to employ them, as well as for the future of government policy and the resilience of the economy in general.

This is exactly what they GOPers say they wanted. New entrepreneurs! Competition! The power of free markets! Now that it's happening they're whining. Hmmmmm.

The problem is these new entrepreneurs will fail and they'll turn into right wingers complaining that Big Government regulations and taxes made them fail and nasty, lazy workers get in the way of success too.   

[pnwguy]

Jan 26, 2022 18:54:54 GMT goldenvalley said:

Jan 26, 2022 18:44:25 GMT LFC said:

Republicans are whining that workers can't be found when it's clear they're just going to better jobs, which is exactly how the free market is supposed to work ... allegedly. Here's another reason for the Republicans to stop whining.

This is exactly what they GOPers say they wanted. New entrepreneurs! Competition! The power of free markets! Now that it's happening they're whining. Hmmmmm.

The problem is these new entrepreneurs will fail and they'll turn into right wingers complaining that Big Government regulations and taxes made them fail and nasty, lazy workers get in the way of success too.   

It's all the fault of the 13th Amendment and those liberals who passed it.  Any idea what political party did that?  

[LFC]

Older, more experienced workers are also quitting. The charts aren't linkable but they show increased quit rates across all age brackets and all tenure brackets. I'm sure some is just older people being close to retirement anyway but it sounds like quite a brain drain that corporations may not have prepared for.

With prices soaring and analysts predicting a recession on the horizon, it might not seem like the best time to quit your job. But that’s not keeping American workers, especially older, more tenured ones, from doing so.

Higher-paid workers are increasingly quitting their jobs, as the Great Resignation — also known as the Great Reshuffle — enters its second year. Earlier in the pandemic, the trend was led by younger, less-tenured workers in low-paying industries like retail, food service, and health care. Now, the main growth in quit rates is coming from older, more tenured workers in higher-paid industries like finance, tech, and other knowledge worker fields, according to data from two separate human resources and analytics companies. These workers say they are searching for less tangible benefits like meaning and flexibility.

That changing composition of who is quitting paints an increasingly complicated picture of the state of work in America and suggests that while quit rates have decreased slightly from their highs last year, the phenomenon is not going away just yet.

“The Great Resignation is almost like a train, where it’s built all this momentum and it’s hard to slow down, but certain workers are getting off the train and new workers are coming on,” said Luke Pardue, an economist at Gusto, which provides payroll, benefits, and human resource management software to small- and medium-sized businesses.

[goldenvalley]

May 2, 2022 15:01:28 GMT LFC said:

Older, more experienced workers are also quitting. The charts aren't linkable but they show increased quit rates across all age brackets and all tenure brackets. I'm sure some is just older people being close to retirement anyway but it sounds like quite a brain drain that corporations may not have prepared for.

With prices soaring and analysts predicting a recession on the horizon, it might not seem like the best time to quit your job. But that’s not keeping American workers, especially older, more tenured ones, from doing so.

Higher-paid workers are increasingly quitting their jobs, as the Great Resignation — also known as the Great Reshuffle — enters its second year. Earlier in the pandemic, the trend was led by younger, less-tenured workers in low-paying industries like retail, food service, and health care. Now, the main growth in quit rates is coming from older, more tenured workers in higher-paid industries like finance, tech, and other knowledge worker fields, according to data from two separate human resources and analytics companies. These workers say they are searching for less tangible benefits like meaning and flexibility.

That changing composition of who is quitting paints an increasingly complicated picture of the state of work in America and suggests that while quit rates have decreased slightly from their highs last year, the phenomenon is not going away just yet.

“The Great Resignation is almost like a train, where it’s built all this momentum and it’s hard to slow down, but certain workers are getting off the train and new workers are coming on,” said Luke Pardue, an economist at Gusto, which provides payroll, benefits, and human resource management software to small- and medium-sized businesses.

These people discovered that they were tired of chasing dollars and being endlessly on call to their jobs.  Working from home was nice, less stressful sometimes. Now they're near the potential retirement date and looking at their 401 k plans which, while losing value in the last quarter, did extraordinarily well in the last two years.  Why not leave the rat race if not to retire, then to do something you really want to do?

[Bact PhD]

Two pieces in recent days discuss the phenomenon of “quiet quitting.” Oddly enough, although both pieces refer to it as a “Gen Z phenomenon,” the people interviewed were closer in age to Gen X.

www.wsj.com/articles/if-your-gen-z-co-workers-are-quiet-quitting-heres-what-that-means-11660260608

Clayton Farris, 41 years old, said that when he recently heard about the new term circulating on social media he realized he’d already been doing it by refusing to let work worries rule over him the way they used to.

“The most interesting part about it is nothing’s changed,” he said in his TikTok video. “I still work just as hard. I still get just as much accomplished. I just don’t stress and internally rip myself to shreds.”

Across generations, U.S. employee engagement is falling, according to survey data from Gallup, but Gen Z and younger millennials, born in 1989 and after, reported the lowest engagement of all during the first quarter at 31%.

Jim Harter, chief scientist for Gallup’s workplace and well-being research, said workers’ descriptions of “quiet quitting” align with a large group of survey respondents that he classifies as “not engaged”—those who will show up to work and do the minimum required but not much else. More than half of workers surveyed by Gallup who were born after 1989—54%—fall into this category.

One factor Gallup uses to measure engagement is whether people feel their work has purpose. Younger employees report that they don’t feel that way, the data show. These are the people who are more likely to work passively and look out for themselves over their employers, Dr. Harter said.

www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/08/14/what-is-quiet-quitting/10304956002/?gnt-cfr=1

Lisa Souza, an insurance claims adjuster, regularly volunteered to work on weekends and holidays but the strain was compounded during the pandemic as colleagues retired early or stayed home out of health concerns.

Her workload increased significantly, and she was given projects outside her field, such as setting up new software applications.

“I told them, ‘You’re going to stretch me so far I’m just going to end up being a pile of goo,’” says Souza, who is 57 and lives in Fall River, Massachusetts. “It just got to be too much.’”

So in spring of last year, “I said I’m done. I’m not going to volunteer anymore.”

Millions of Americans are taking a similar approach. Burned out after logging excessive hours or duties during COVID-19, they’re resolving to meet their job requirements but not go beyond. No toiling late into the night. No calls on weekends. And no pushing themselves to the brink even during regular business hours.

Their determination to stick to their job descriptions has been made possible by widespread labor shortages that have given workers unprecedented leverage over employers.     
                                                                                                          
“Employees are saying, ‘I’m not going to define myself by traditional markers of career progression and success,’” says Mark Royal, senior client partner for Korn Ferry, a recruiting and human resource consulting firm. “I’m going to put a box around work.”

Many workers “have shifted to doing the bare minimum,” says Annie Rosencrans, U.S. people and cultural director for HiBob, which makes HR software.

Hmmm. Perhaps the mantra “I work to live; I don’t live to work” has taken hold despite decades of brainwashing to the contrary on the part of a lot of employers?

[LFC]

Aug 18, 2022 20:06:41 GMT Bact PhD said:

Hmmm. Perhaps the mantra “I work to live; I don’t live to work” has taken hold despite decades of brainwashing to the contrary on the part of a lot of employers?

I worked like that for a company back in the 80s and 90s. When I finally hit my breaking point I realized that all of the benefit from my abundant extra hours would end up in the owner's pocket and almost nothing in mine. That's the point I decided I would do my job and do it well but I wasn't going to constantly give 110%. Since then I've seen companies management that appreciates their employees and management that doesn't really. I can adjust accordingly if I wish.

[AnBr]

Aug 18, 2022 20:26:06 GMT LFC said:

Aug 18, 2022 20:06:41 GMT Bact PhD said:

Hmmm. Perhaps the mantra “I work to live; I don’t live to work” has taken hold despite decades of brainwashing to the contrary on the part of a lot of employers?

I worked like that for a company back in the 80s and 90s. When I finally hit my breaking point I realized that all of the benefit from my abundant extra hours would end up in the owner's pocket and almost nothing in mine. That's the point I decided I would do my job and do it well but I wasn't going to constantly give 110%. Since then I've seen companies management that appreciates their employees and management that doesn't really. I can adjust accordingly if I wish.

Like I noted in the Union thread, when management treats you like crap and/or the pay is too low it is the best way to assure that your workers don't give a shit and will work accordingly.

[LFC]

People are working. In this market you can see why they have no interest in taking low paying shit jobs.

[Bact PhD]

Dear Daughter is case-in-point. After 2 years of teaching in a local preschool during the academic year and gigging in a day camp over the summer, she got a year-round offer she could NOT refuse from the school that runs the summer camp program she’s been part of. Seriously, over $100/week more, plus full benefits including health & retirement, plus it’s a 12-month position…

[LFC]

The quite rate is leveling out. Seems like a lot of people have now made their moves.