This is America: the new jobs market
We tend to say that everything in America is big. Well, let me introduce you one of the biggest trends today: the “Big Quit”!
Opportunity or threat?
The “Big Quit” or “Great Resignation” is a term coined by Dr Anthony Klotz to refer to the number of people who intent to leave their current jobs during or towards the end of the pandemic. According to an Indeed survey, at least 1 in 4 workers plan on quitting their job in 2022. Believe it or not, but companies are having a tough enough time attracting employees today or at least retaining them. Why so?
The same survey states that over 90% of job switchers said they quit because the pandemic made them feel like “life is too short to stay in a job they weren’t passionate about”. But you may wonder that as the pandemic is reaching to its end, so will the trend.. Right? According to federal data, the trend isn’t even showing a sign of slowing down.
This trend may be dramatic for companies, but for some employees, it is taken in a funnier tone by publicly announcing they quit their job on social media like Tik-Tok.
In January 2022, 4.3 million people quit their job for multiple and diverse reasons. Quitting a job doesn’t necessary mean quitting the job market, it can also mean looking for a new job. Today, finding a new job is easier and opportunities are multiplying. For instance, in the same period, America knew 11.3 million job openings.
A trend played by Digitalization ft Social Media
Since decades now, advanced economies moved to a service-based model. In 2016, Financial Times proclaimed that “the office is dead!” in the headline of July’s edition even before Covid-19. You can only imagine how dead the office was after the pandemic. But wait.. we were there!
Work is nowadays carried out everywhere thanks to digitalization and remote working. Required skills today are based on generalizable occupational skills such as competencies in computing and communications that are easily learnable and transportable from a job to another, to a company to another. Global Workplace Analytics estimates that 22% of American will fully work remotely by 2025.
It would be also wise to mention that job opportunities were never easier to find thanks to information technologies and social media. Starting a new job has never been easier. No need for relocation today thanks to remote working. Better opportunities and lower costs to switch had as a result more selective employees who choose the job that fits them the most.
A global trend?
Digitalization is a global phenomenon spreading and growing faster everywhere -depending on the country’s access to the internet- as it’s the key to competitiveness and economic growth. Although the term gained popularity in some European and Asian countries, official data show that talking about a “Great Resignation” isn’t an obvious option today.
This said, life isn’t perfect. I believe each one of us is making concessions for a reason or another. When it comes to work, how far can you turn a blind eye?
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
