'I quit': Workers are changing jobs at a record pace amid burnout, new openings with higher pay

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Mark Meadors had enough of his COVID work life.

Since late last year, the 31-year-old was putting in more than 70 hours a week at four jobs -- a full-time position in human resources for a construction company and part-time gigs at a grocery store, boat dealership and in the Air Force Reserves.

Meadors, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, took the part-time jobs because he felt his HR position in construction wasn't stable as the pandemic was buffeting the industry.

But the grind left him exhausted and with little time to spend with his wife and five kids. So with the number of job openings soaring, Meadors quit the HR, grocery store and boat dealer positions recently to take a more secure human resources job at a university. He has continued his duties in the Air Force Reserves.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/quit-workers-changing-jobs-record-040106513.html

[Bristlecone]

1. Sounds like the Free Market at work here.

Employers that are shocked or upset over the loss of employees to higher paying, better and more secure jobs are kidding themselves imo. They love to blame the jobless benefits as the reason, but the real issue is that they pay bad wages, offer horrible benefits - if any, and are probably bad employers.

Pay more, offer more, and treat people with respect and compassion and you create loyalty. W/o that, people are always going to look for a better gig. And leave the very minute it is offered to them.

[madville]

2. They have started to adjust our pay scale at work to head things off

Our entry level pay is going from $17.79 to $19.10 an hour in response to the $15 minimum wage that passed at the state level. They have also narrowed up the pay raise steps to help with retention, instead of 12 years it now takes 8.5 years to go from $19.10 to topped out at $44 an hour on the pay scale. Most people here dealt with the mandatory COVID OT pretty well due to the financial, we had people making $15,000-$20,000+ a month at the height of the lockdowns but we were having to sleep at work a week at a time and were getting paid for the whole 24 hour day.