When we take a 30,000-foot purview of what’s happening right now regarding “The Great Resignation,” it looks pretty dire: nearly four-plus million workers have left their positions each month since October of last year. Not counting numbers for March (which have not yet been announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics), that’s nearly 16 million people who have resigned, quit, etc. over a four-month period.
Economist Arindrajit Dube recently sparked an interesting discussion on why he believes that The Great Resignation is more of a “Great Reshuffling,” given that data points to workers’ resignations concentrated in industries such as retail, restaurants, hospitality, mining and logging, etc. And, interestingly enough, just last week, he tweeted:
There is no Great Resignation … people are not leaving the workforce. Prime-age employment rate is back to 2019 levels! What we have is a Great Reshuffling: workers moving to better paying jobs. That’s what a competitive labor market actually looks like!
So, if we were to agree with Dube, the approach towards what’s happening right now would look something like this: workers, unhappy with wages, left their positions en masse for better compensation, creating a “weird” labor market that is now competitive compared to the disconcerted workforce foundation that we experienced earlier in the pandemic.
I’m not one to disagree with a talented economist who bases his public insights on hard data. However, I’d like to throw some additional thoughts onto the pile to reflect some of the other influences on The Great/Greatest Resignation. For one, Dube’s only miss in his statement is that there’s so much more to resignations than compensation. In fact, we’ve talked about them (at-length!) here at the Future of Work Exchange. Purposeful work, flexibility, remote and hybrid work options, etc.…these are absolutely critical facets that contribute to the ongoing, massive numbers of resignations.
What many pundits seem to be getting at in their messaging is this: why is the labor market so competitive even though 16 million workers (not including those who had done so in March) left their positions voluntarily over the past several months? Is The Great Resignation even real?
Well, yes, it is. We just cannot argue with the fact that millions of people left their roles; the numbers are there to prove that. It’s what’s happening after the resignations that is so vitally important. This is where I feel what is happening is more of a “Great Resettling” rather than a “Great Reshuffling,” as workers who have left their jobs are “resettling” themselves within a different dynamic.
Economist Dean Baker brought up an interesting point in an article from a few weeks ago, stating, “The number of people who reported being self-employed (both incorporated and unincorporated) in March was 618,000 above the average for 2019. The fact that self-employment remains high, even as the labor market has tightened enormously, indicates that self-employment is a choice rather than an act of desperation.” (Future of Work Exchange research discovered this, as well, back in the summer of 2021: 43% of the workforce was considered “non-employee” before the pandemic and increased to over 47% during it.)
The word “choice” in that statement means all of the difference between “reshuffling” and “resettling.” A great reshuffle, at least to me, would mean that workers are moving in vastly different pathways than they were in pre-pandemic times. A great resettlement means that:
- Those who were of retirement age during the pandemic but didn’t want to retire will make the choice to do so out of either necessity or for the sake of health and safety.
- More and more workers will adopt a flexible, contingent-led career pathway that afforded them the ability to be independent.
- Professionals who reached a breaking point with their current organizations’ lack of employee engagement (and flexible work models) will seek culture over compensation.
- Tens of thousands of workers have started (and will continue to launch) their own companies to take advantage of an entrepreneur’s market, and;
- “Digital nomads,” who wanted to leave major metropolitan areas and had the flexibility to work remotely because their industries supported it, will easily adopt new work structures wherever they want to be.
Figuratively, the “dust is settling” right now. If the March resignation numbers mimic those of November, December, January, and February, we’re still operating in Greatest Resignation mode, with workers about to rethink their future pathways aiming for a more settled foundation for the second half of 2022.
Actually, today, professionals are settling into positions that satisfy long-desired urges, including flexibility, empathy, and purpose. The Great Resettling seems to be a more on-the-nose phrase to use, since it encapsulates the ways workers are settling into extended/contingent roles, independent positions, and solo-preneur/entrepreneur ventures.
