Julia Horowitz* surveyed different opinions on a job-quitting phenomenon that began in the US and is gradually spreading to countries around the world.
In the past 12 months a record number of Americans have quit their jobs, and workers around the world have been paying attention.
Two years since COVID-19 disrupted lives around the planet, the United States doesn’t have a monopoly on the factors driving the Great Resignation.
Dissatisfaction with working conditions, uninspiring jobs and bad bosses has gone global, as has a desire to seek out a better deal from companies short on staff.
The data for other markets often lags, but the latest figures now show that resignations have jumped in the United Kingdom, Australia and France, too.
While experts say a wave of quitting hasn’t materialised in countries like Germany and Singapore, surveys indicate workers there are also eying the exits.
A December survey by jobs site, Indeed of roughly 1,000 workers in Singapore found that almost half of respondents were unsure if they’d stay in their current positions over the next six months.
LinkedIn data for January showed a notable increase in the number of workers switching industries in Spain, the Netherlands and Italy compared to early 2021.
Senior Vice President at Slack who heads up the Future Forum initiative, Brian Elliott says this is a “recalibration that people have had where they’re rethinking the role of work in their lives”.
“They’re rethinking — not only in terms of things like compensation — but also, clearly, things like flexibility, purpose, balance,” he says.
Professor of Business Administration at Texas A&M University, Anthony Klotz said in 2020 a backlog of people who wanted to leave their jobs built up, since they largely stayed put during the initial phase of the pandemic.
Reports of burnout were widespread. People were asking big questions about the purpose of life while sitting on large piles of savings.
Later there was the potential for friction as those who had been working remotely, and now prioritised flexibility, were called back into the office.
In some cases people left the labour market to care for children or elderly relatives; shortages of workers in industries like retail and hospitality boosted demand for labour.
People in desk jobs, who were tired of long pandemic hours and Zoom meetings, started to decide they’d had enough.
The factors Professor Klotz identified aren’t exclusive to the United States, but debate has been heated over whether the Great Resignation has arrived in other job markets.
Australian Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg called it the Great Reshuffle. Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower said despite speculation that Singapore could see a Great Resignation wave, its resignation rate was just 1.7 per cent.
President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde said the European Union was not experiencing “anything like the Great Resignation”.
In Europe, many Governments made extensive use of short-time work programs, which encouraged struggling companies to retain tens of millions of employees but reduce their working hours.
The State then subsidised a portion of their pay.
This differed from the approach in the US, where workers received benefits after they were fired or were mailed stimulus checks that padded their savings regardless of employment status.
Head of Investment Strategy and Economics for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Citi Private Bank, Guillaume Menuet said across Europe, for the most part, people stayed with the employers they had.
However, there have been signs of churn.
In France, the number of resignations during the third quarter of 2021, the most recent data available, was the highest on records dating back to 2007.
Australia’s Government said one million workers began new roles in the three months to November 2021.
The rate of job switching is almost 10 per cent above the pre-pandemic average.
In the UK the rate of employed people aged 16-to-64 moving from job-to-job was at an all-time high of 3.2 per cent between October and December.
The Future Forum report, published in January, found that 53 per cent of workers in France and 55 per cent in Germany and Japan were open to looking for new jobs in the next year.
That number rises to 64 per cent in Australia and 60 per cent in the UK.
This willingness to seek out new opportunities comes as job openings remain elevated, and employers in a number of industries are willing to pay more to recruit workers.
In Australia, the Government said workers who moved jobs typically got pay bumps of between eight and 10 per cent.
Sydney-based worker, Patrecia Ming Buckley, who left EY, one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms, said mental health played a big role in her decision.
“I just started to feel like I was part of a big machine. I never saw myself as someone who would be part of the race to climb the corporate ladder,” Ms Ming Buckley said.
She took a few months off and recently started interviewing. This time, she’s looking for a part-time role at a non-profit.
She says this is something that aligns more closely with her values, and will allow her to launch a coaching and mentoring business on the side.
“I don’t think people woke up one day and were super unhappy with their jobs,” she said.
“I think it’s been building for years and years and years.”
*Julia Horowitz is a senior writer for CNN based in London. She leads the network’s international coverage of global markets.
This article first appeared on the CNN Business website.
