The so-called “Great Resignation” has seen 129,000 Oregonian workers leaving their jobs from August to September of 2021. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of individuals quitting or voluntarily separating from their jobs reached a national high of 4.4 million workers last September. The industries experiencing the greatest losses of workers are the arts, entertainment and recreation, state and local government and education.
Reasons for quitting range from service industry workers wanting better treatment from customers to a restructuring of the American identity away from work being the centerpiece around which lives are built. According to University of Oregon Associate Professor of Economics Michael Kuhn, the main worker groups participating in the Great Resignation are mid-career, high-earning employees and low-wage workers, particularly in the tech and healthcare sectors.
“The quit rate for low-wage workers is not just above its pre-pandemic levels, but it is way, way, way above its pre-pandemic levels. The lower you go down on the pay scale, the bigger it is relative to what the quit rate was before the pandemic,“ Kuhn said. “The biggest single Great Resignation phenomenon group that you can point to is what’s going on with low-wage workers.”
Workers are joining the Great Resignation because of three factors, according to Kuhn: wages, quality of on-the-job experience and workplace flexibility.
“The number of job openings is extremely high, and that gives workers a bargaining power that they haven’t had in a very long time,” Kuhn said. “Especially low-wage workers have a bargaining power that they haven’t had in a really long time.”
Kuhn said the Great Resignation has stirred a level of confidence that lets workers feel as though they can leave their jobs and land on their feet with a better employer.
“What’s been true for a very long time is that job transitions are really profitable for workers. This is the best way to capitalize on your value in the labor market. So we’ve always been wondering, ‘why don’t people do this more?’” Kuhn said. “Whatever thought process has brought people here is actually giving them access to a source of wage gains that may actually have been on the table in the past but weren’t being exploited for whatever reason.”
For UO senior McKenna Alger, reasons for changing jobs throughout the pandemic have been related to wage increases and the ability to work remotely. Alger went from working in retail at both Harbor Freight and Old Navy to working as an online tutor for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. She said the repetitiveness of her work in retail made her desire a job that fulfilled a greater purpose in her life.
“There’s just something about retail. It gets old,” Alger said. “It’s really cool to be able to help people rather than to feel like you need to be servicing people. It has a lot more purpose than folding clothes.”
Alger said retail work can feel like an endless cycle, and she understands the desire for workers to focus more on their personal lives over the needs of their jobs. She feels hopeful that changing perspectives about work throughout the pandemic will lead to bigger changes across companies, allowing workers more freedom in their lives.
“I definitely don’t want my life to just be my job,” Alger said. “I definitely agree with a lot of people right now who are looking to get away from that because there’s really nothing appealing about sitting in an office for 40 hours a week.”
