A record number of workers are quitting their jobs, empowered by new leverage

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

The number of people quitting their jobs has surged to record highs, according to new data from the Department of Labor released Tuesday. Some 4.3 million people quit jobs in August, according to the monthly survey — about 2.9 percent of the workforce.

The phenomenon is being driven in part by workers who are less willing to endure inconvenient hours, compensation, or conditions because they know there are ample opportunities elsewhere. Those numbers include about 892,000 workers in restaurants, bars and hotels, as well as 721,000 workers in retail. An additional 706,000 employees in professional business services and 534,000 workers in health care and social assistance also quit.

Nick Bunker, economist at the jobs site Indeed, said the numbers were a reflection of the leverage workers have in the current economic market, with job openings outnumbering unemployed workers. The high level of people quitting their jobs was likely due in large part to people leaving jobs to take other positions, although the data doesn’t specify why people are quitting and where they are ending up.

“This really elevated rate of people quitting their job is a sign that workers have lots of confidence and they have relatively stronger bargaining positions then they’ve had in the past,” Bunker said. “There’s lots of demand, and people are seizing that opportunity and quitting their job.”The numbers add another data point to a surprising aspect of the pandemic: that workers are emerging with more leverage, as many employers say they are struggling to staff up.

This is a developing story and will be updated

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/12/jolts-workers-quitting-august-pandemic/

[Johnny2X2X]

1. Great news!

For the first time in my lifetime, workers have some real leverage and are using it.

Employers are going to have to compete for workers or close.

[durablend]

2. More likely

Said employers will continue bitching to the media that "Damn lazy people are sitting at home on unemployment!"

[BumRushDaShow]

3. After awhile, they can't use that excuse anymore

since the UE is no longer "extended" as far as I know (and the American Rescue Plan extensions/additions were allowed to expire in August IIRC).

I think you have a good-sized chunk of people who were eligible to retire and they did (rather than work a bit longer - either to try to get a higher monthly amount of SS or their actual "full" SS and/or because they originally wanted something to do and figured they could make that extra money to do it, but decided it wasn't worth the hassle).

mahatmakanejeeves posted more detail on the Household Survey this morning - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2811772

[Deep State Witch]

4. That Would Be Me

I was eligible to retire from the Federal Government in November. I waited until the end of the year, then I was outta there. My husband just left his contractor position. Now we are taking control of a couple of apps from friends of ours who can no longer maintain them.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. I retired from the federal government almost exactly 1 month after I was

eligible (just to make sure I got my birthdate and EOD date aligned and the excess sick leave contributed towards the months to calculate the final amount).

Took my lump sum of saved up annual leave (that I used to pay off my car note) and outta there!



I know a bunch of my former co-workers ended up doing the 41 years, 11 months but for me, there was no way in hell.

(plus it ended up that my eventual take home was not much different from what I got when I was working because I no longer had to pay city wage tax or state income tax or pay into SS/annuity).

[durablend]

21. Makes no difference

Keep repeating it = the masses believe it (true or not)

[BumRushDaShow]

22. It's football season

and I don't think "the masses" are paying much attention to the endless noise from the MSM and their RW owners. The "if it bleeds, it leads" nonsense that elevates the chaotic thoughts of a small portion of the population of loons to claim it is somehow "representative of" the majority of the American populace, has gotten tiresome.

I think the data speaks for itself. What will be instructive is what happens in the months going forward.

[NotHardly]

8. INDEED.. LOL... where one goes to fill out endless applications with nary a word back from any

A site full of tiny part-time gigs with endless duplicate application forms where no one every replies to the applications. They don't want employees, they want slaves and no one wants to be a slave anymore.

Think I'm wrong... look at the US states having prison and jail inmates being hired out to do everything from fire fighting to farm harvesting and tell me I am wrong.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Thanks for the thread. I put the JOLTS report over in the Economy Group.

I didn't see that Yahoo! Finance had an article about it. That's as far as I looked.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. It's up at Yahoo! Finance now

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/workers-quit-their-jobs-at-a-historically-high-rate-162801760.html

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. It took them two and a half hours. No wonder I couldn't find it. Thanks. NT

[BumRushDaShow]

19. LOL

[modrepub]

6. And I Wonder How Much Anti-Immigration Policies

have contributed to worker "shortages". I'd guess that the policies and attitudes of the last decade have pretty much limited or curtailed the number of low-wage workers that make up the bulk of immigrants who used to enter the US. Probably not something many people track or care about.

[CTyankee]

7. We have to deal with real prejudice against older workers also.

I retired at 65 and some months, to get the larger benefit if I worked that long. I knew there was age discrimination and planned my departure to get the greater benefit under SSI. I knew I had retirement funds and an inheritance I could count on. So I told people in my department about my plan but didn't tell the boss until I was ready to announce my retirement. I knew she was planning on firing me and I effectively cut her off at the pass.

She didn't last too much longer herself and got fired.

I was glad I maximized my retirement benefits.

[OMGWTF]

16. I "retired" in October 2008 at 52 when 1/3 of the company I worked at for 20 years were laid-off

in the last Great Republican Recession. Hubs was already retired and we decided we could live on just his income if we didn't have a mortgage. So we sold our city house and bought a beautiful soon-to-be bank-owned house in the country with cash. I got a nice severance package and in retrospect, getting laid-off was the very best thing that could have happened to me. The absolute worst thing about this time has been buying private heath insurance. What a rip-off!! Thank Goddess I have Medicare now.

[True Blue American]

23. MedicareAdvantage

Is what you need if you are on Medicare. Check the back of your Medicare book to compare plans.
HMO’s-check to make sure your Doctor is on the plan. They have so many extras today. Medicare only covers 80%.

[calimary]

25. I waited til I reached the point of being vested in the pension plan.

At the AP you had to work for five years before you could.

But between the time I retired (after 9 years), and the time I called to inquire about something, that had changed. By then, you had to put in 10 years before you qualified.

[LymphocyteLover]

10. Good & what exactly happened to all the jobs that would be taken up by automation like Andrew Yang

kept warning us about?

[Hekate]

28. Those already have been, long since. That's what he was trying to tell people who griped about ...

… immigrants taking their jobs. He said walk in the doors of any factory and count the numbers of people versus robotic machinery — a few people tending lots of robots.

There’s a diminishing number of jobs that can only be done by human beings.

[LymphocyteLover]

30. OK, but I thought he was warning of a future where there would be hardly any jobs as machines take

over everything

[SWBTATTReg]

11. About time since workers are 1/2 of the equation, and never seemed to hold any cards in the ...

game well enough to play, to get better benefits, better wages, and starting minimum wage still stuck at 1980s rates. Owners and stock markets have had 100% of the play over the last 35-40 years!! Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

Enough of this coddling employers/owners who would beseech that their businesses would be doomed if they had to increase wages or offer benefits to workers. How many times can they used this very overused excuse over the last 40 years, none of which are true (businesses are doomed) when costs have spiraled up and up on other costs besides wages?

Workers have finally reached the limits of their patience and endurance, because the "do nothing" republicans in Congress repeatedly refused to increase the starting minimum wage for workers. Workers are tired of getting their wages nickel and dimed right and left increasingly to pay for every benefit too, that their employers 'gave' them, so in effect, the workers were paying for the benefits, not the businesses. Also, workers were sharing their tips to pay for other employees too in the business. Restaurants, and other such businesses do this to their workers, which I think is ridiculous.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

13. I think there's a lot of factors in play ...

1) Tightened immigration
2) Parents who are boomers and early gen-X, passing away and leaving their working-age children and grandchildren money and property (including probably a lot of C19 deaths)
3) Recent rapid rises in property values allowing people to take out 2nd mortgages and HILOCs and such, giving people an instant nest-egg to live on, at least for a time
4) People selling their homes for decent profits and moving back in with parents or other relatives, perhaps to assist in caretaking with the aging population and have more employment flexibility.
5) Later baby boomers (and some early Gen X) retiring

[DBoon]

26. 6) Record high stock market allows 401(k) and IRA pullouts

Switch the stocks to bond or other more stable investment and retire based on appreciation

[OMGWTF]

14. We just came from breakfast at our favorite local cafe and its sister restaurant is now closed

Tuesdays and Wednesdays because they don't have enough kitchen help. I've seen this in other cities too.

[True Blue American]

24. Even Frischs Big Boy is badly understaffed.

Sign on door, work today, get paid tomorrow.

[wryter2000]

15. I think it's wonderful

People don't have to put up with crap from employers.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. A repeat of what happened after the Black Death in Europe in the 14th century.

Last edited Tue Oct 12, 2021, 04:12 PM - Edit history (1)

So many people died that there was a huge shortage of workers and the peasants finally had some leverage and could demand better wages. It ended serfdom in western Europe.

Edited to use the correct word.

[DBoon]

27. The powers that be passed laws rolling back wages during the plague

with little success

[Glaisne]

20. Power should reside with the workers,

not with the corporations. Labor precedes and is superior to capital. The interests of workers, communities and citizens should come before the interests of capital and profits. One can dream.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

29. Almost 3 percent of U.S. workforce quit in August

Almost 3 percent of U.S. workforce quit in August

Workers are less willing to endure inconvenient hours and poor compensation. There were 10.4 million job openings in the country at the end of August, giving workers enormous leverage as they look for a better fit.

By Eli Rosenberg, Abha Bhattarai and Andrew Van Dam 26 minutes ago

-- -- -- -- -- --

Business

A record number of workers are quitting their jobs, empowered by new leverage

4.3 million people quit their jobs in August, nearly 3 percent of the workforce

By Eli Rosenberg, Abha Bhattarai and Andrew Van Dam
Today at 4:56 p.m. EDT | Updated today at 5:01 p.m. EDT

The number of people quitting their jobs has surged to record highs, pushed by a combination of factors that include Americans sensing ample opportunity and better pay elsewhere.

Some 4.3 million people quit jobs in August — about 2.9 percent of the workforce, according to new data released Tuesday from the Labor Department. Those numbers are up from the previous record set in April, of about 4 million people quitting, reflecting how the pandemic has continued to jolt workers’ mind-set about their jobs and their lives.

The phenomenon is being driven in part by workers who are less willing to endure inconvenient hours and poor compensation, who are quitting instead to find better opportunities. According to the report, there were 10.4 million job openings in the country at the end of August — down slightly from July’s record high, which was adjusted up to 11.1 million, but still a tremendously high number. This gives workers enormous leverage as they look for a better fit.

{snip}

The implications of this shift could be long-lasting.

Normally, churn in the labor market reflects workers feeling more confident in the economy, willing to risk the security of their current job for a new opportunity. But the scale of these new changes — and the larger economic transitions they signal — has added an element of unpredictability. Both workers and employers are reassessing their approaches amid a continually evolving public health threat.

{snip}

Andrew Van Dam contributed to this report.

By Eli Rosenberg
Eli Rosenberg covers work and labor for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in 2017 after a decade in New York, where he worked at the New York Times, the Daily News, and the Brooklyn Paper. He has covered misinformation campaigns, politics in the Trump era, immigration issues, and disasters across the country. Twitter https://twitter.com/emrosenberg

By Abha Bhattarai
Abha Bhattarai is the national retail reporter for The Washington Post. She was previously a reporting fellow at the New York Times. Twitter https://twitter.com/abhabhattarai

By Andrew Van Dam
Andrew Van Dam covers data and economics. He previously worked for the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe and the Idaho Press-Tribune. Twitter https://twitter.com/andrewvandam

[TexasBushwhacker]

31. One thing they don't mention much is that Baby Boomers

are turning 65 at a rate of 10K A DAY, and that rate will continue for another 8 years. Some are retiring before 65, but many try to hold out to 70 to maximize their Social Security. But wrap your brain around this. Because of the shear size of the Baby Boomer generation, plus the Silent Generation that is now in their 90s and older, we have almost 100 MILLION adults over 55. They will be retiring and dying over the next 30 years and we do NOT have enough educated and experienced workers to take their places.

[BumRushDaShow]

32. Yup

I had posted similar in the original jobs report thread - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2811034

A couple decades ago, it was predicted that at some point, there would be an exodus that could cause issues. That initial exodus didn't actually happen when it was thought it could occur, as boomers were staying in their jobs - either to try to get to a point of getting the max SS monthly checks and/or to supplement whatever small pensions they had (if they even had one) and/or for income needed to cover medical and other expenses for themselves or for their own Silent/Greatest Gen parents / Youngest GenX or Millennial children. But the pandemic seems to have been the kick to get the ball rolling, for some to say enough is enough.

I did actually hear and even see a report yesterday that a good chunk of Millennials were also doing major job moves (quits) that is underlying this. I think in this case, some of it may be natural career shifts as the mid-older age of their range are approaching middle age/mid-career, and have school age children.