We know the pandemic has given us a whole new vocabulary: Pivot, Social Distancing, Reimagining…and the list goes on. But the latest phenomenon that has occurred from these past two years is called the Great Resignation — also known as the Great Reevaluation and The Big Quit. Here we go again.
The Great Resignation is a term that was first brought to light in 2021 by Anthony Klotz, a management professor at the Mays Business School in Texas. He found that when you combined everything that happened to us during the pandemic and added in job burnout, we ended with this mass employee departure and resignations. Once our daily rituals of actually going into work, taking our kids to school and spending unlimited time with our friends took a hiatus, our lives were drastically altered.
Millions of workers retired during the pandemic. And it’s beginning to look like the majority of them won’t return to the work force.
According to Goldman Sachs, “2.5 million of the 5 million workers missing from the labor force are retirees. And 1.5 million of them are early retirees.” According to worldwide employment website Indeed, when they surveyed 1,000 people who voluntarily resigned from at least two jobs since March 2020, 92 percent of them said, “The pandemic made them feel life is too short to stay in a job they weren’t passionate about.”
No one could have predicted the consequences of social isolation. But here we have it. A major problem associated with The Big Quit is the increasing number of vacant positions. For employers, the daunting process of recruiting and training employees for their new jobs is costly and time consuming. That is the most common complaint I hear from the chamber’s member businesses. They just don’t have enough employees to keep their doors open like they used to. And many of our business owners find they are trapped in their offices, filling in for that staff shortage.
As for employees, we know unemployment rate is down and that there’s a whole lot of open jobs out there. But that doesn’t mean they are the perfect jobs for job seekers. That’’s what economists call “mismatches.” About 48 percent of job seekers surveyed by FlexJob said they are frustrated with their job search. They just aren’t finding the right positions.
And this sometimes leaves us, the consumers, in the cross hairs, as well. Ever go into a restaurant and are plagued by a perceived lack of service? Your drink order takes forever. You’ve run out of small talk with your partner before your food order has even been handed off to the kitchen? You have trouble getting your questions answered when stopping into a mom and pop that used to greet you at the door? Long lines in the grocery store are forcing you into self checkout? It may just be me, but if I wanted to ring up my own groceries, I would get a job at a grocery store. I despise self-checkout — I always smoosh the bread under the ice cream.
So let’s take a deep breath. Our small businesses are doing everything they can to get back up to speed. Have a little patience. Need to get in and out of a local restaurant quickly? Well, it just may not happen.
They are doing the best they can. If you have to wait a little longer in line, stifle that attitude. Everyone’s trying to figure this whole thing out.
They will. They have before. Just don’t let me bag your groceries. I will smoosh your bread.
Lynne Conlan is executive director of the South Hillsborough Chamber of Commerce. Call her at 813-634-5111, or email lynne@southhillschamber.com.
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