The Great Resignation: Why Are People Quitting Jobs in Record Numbers?

Around the country, millions of people are quitting their jobs. In August alone, more than 4 million people quit, and with no definitive end in sight, this wave is being dubbed “the Great Resignation.”

There are a lot of jobs available; companies everywhere are short-staffed and wondering why. There seem to be a few obvious reasons that companies are having a hard time filling the positions. For example, vaccine mandates, safety, and childcare concerns, and wages that do nothing to help alleviate any of the first three concerns. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has given many people the opportunity to sit down and evaluate their lives, their security, their habits, their hobbies, their friends, and their jobs. This has led a lot of people to the realization that they can do better. For a long time, companies have exploited the oversaturated job markets by offering low pay with little to no benefits for jobs that are a pain in the ass. A few of the hardest-hit industries are hotels and restaurants, retail workers, child and residential care facilities, and health care workers such as nurses and other hospital employees. 

Now that we are somewhat getting back to normal, employees who have been working remotely are wondering why they are being asked to come back into the office at all. If the job can be done from home, why get up and join the rat race to sit in a cubicle and do the same thing? People hesitant to get the vaccine are questioning why a job would mandate vaccination but not offer health insurance. And many workers, like those at John Deere, are wondering why the company they work for experiences record profits year after year while their pay stays the same, and their workload increases. These are questions that many employers simply do not have good answers to.