The COVID-19 pandemic has been coexisting with our globe for more than 2 years. It renders tremendous changes to every aspect of our life, evoking more reflections among the general public of what matters to their life. This leads to the phenomenal “Great Resignation” within the entire society of the United States, during which more than 3.95 million workers quit their jobs each month on average, bringing U.S. ‘s quit rate to a historic high figure. It consequently renders a fundamental shift in the power dynamics of the labor market, giving employees the power to choose which employers they are willing to work for now, which prospectively promotes a better working environment in our society. While some may argue that the pandemic will not necessarily lead to a better working environment since companies shouldn’t be responsible for workers’ personal choice to quit, the pandemic does promote a better and healthier environment because the increased awareness of work-life balance will force employees to take their workers’ well being into considerations and provide better working environment under the converted power dynamics.
The pandemic has brought people to the moment of reflection on what really matters to their life. Before the pandemic, people have been living to work for a very long time, devoting every part of themselves into their work: daily commuting to the office, working 9 to 5 or even overtime, and overloading tasks for promotions were just very common in workplaces. However, after witnessing and surviving through the pandemic, people start to reflect on how they should live their life. As quoted from Karen Kimbrough, LinkedIn chief economist, people are rethinking questions like “what do I wanna do? What makes my heart sing?” and “If not now, then when?” The pandemic made people who used to put work on their top priorities that life can be filled with unexpectancies that might suddenly destroy their life regardless of their success in workplaces. Thus, people start to reassess their relationships with work and explore their work-life balance. They are taking a rest from the high-pressure status, switching career paths to where their true passion lies, and finding new opportunities in their career paths. By extension, the pandemic precipitated people’s increased willingness to act in making their decisions to change, which made them more decisive in quitting and developing new career paths. All of the above have together brought the U.S. ‘s quit rate to the highest level recorded by the BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, since the survey launched in 2000.
The increasing number of people who are quitting their jobs with fewer people filling the gap has resulted into a shift in the power dynamics in the labor market. Before the pandemic, it is usually the employers who choose whether to hire somebody or not, while employees have to fight for their chance to get hired with many other competitors; but as more and more jobs became vacant after the pandemic, employees now are taking more power in the labor market. Statistics from JOLTS (The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) has shown that the gap between job opening levels and unemployment levels has been increasing since the level of job openings exceeds that of unemployment in May 2021. As a result, employers are experiencing this difficult time filling positions, which leaves the choices to employees. Just as Karin Kimbrough concluded, “Employees are in the driver’s seat right now”, the increases in the supply of job openings and decreases in job demands lead to a conversion in the fundamental power dynamics in the job market: the employees now are deciding which companies they want to work for. In conclusion, the great resignation, as a social impact of the pandemic, renders the status quo of the employees now taking the initiative in the labor market.
With this converted power structure in the labor market, workers can be “picky”, demanding more benefits for themselves from their employers. In this case, companies will have to respond to the demand of their employees and think of ways to improve on what they can provide as an employer to retain their existing employees and attract more newcomers as well. Erika Rodriguez stated in her article “The Great Resignation has employers sweating. It’s time to escalate the pressure”, that the objective for a “slow-up”, the action as opposed to “slow-down” which entails a permanent and unlocalized redefinition of workplace expectations, is “not to drive down profits (though that may happen), but to uphold the ideal that everyone deserves a life of dignity, which includes rest and distance from work”. In other words, the pandemic gives people increasing awareness of what they deserve in their working environments, which in turn prompts employers to make corresponding advancement in their employee benefits to attract and hire more desirable workers for the company. This would directly lead to a healthy competition, in which employers will provide more employee benefits, focusing on the mental and physical wellbeing of their employees. Therefore, more and more companies would start to provide a variety of beneficiaries for their workers, which effectively elevates the working environment of the industry as a whole.
Some voices might doubt that people quitting en masse are just a short, temporary phenomenon from the pandemic, and companies have no intention to spend an extra amount of money since the resignation trend will gradually end as people are settling down after this stir during the pandemic. Admittedly, the pandemic is a short-term event in history and it will end one day. However, the new mode of thinking that the pandemic has brought to the labor market is something that has influenced us and will continue to influence us in the long term. For example, the invention and utilization of remote working is an unprecedented way of working which allows workers to finish their work in a more intimate, comfortable environment, and therefore an option favored by most employees; though companies might doubt working from home would interfere with overall working efficiencies and hinder the interpersonal connections among the employees, providing the option of remote working for employees is considered a significant advantage in the job market, since that environment is what workers preferred and feel more comfortable with.
By extension, companies also offer benefits in the workplace like services that promote the well being of their workers. For example, more companies are paying attention to their employees’ mental health, and starting to offer programs or facilities that help employees’ mental health in the work environment. This has become a criterion for candidates to measure a company. According to an article “Creating Employee Wellness and Mental Health Programs in the Workforce” published by Paychex Work on May 2021, “1 in 4 workers in a business…reported a deterioration in their mental health since the pandemic began”, “60% of all employees surveyed said that mental health support programs and benefits are important when applying for or considering a job. That number jumps to 80% among employees aged 18–39”. In other words, the pandemic has enabled the public to put more emphasis on workers’ mental health. It is becoming an increasingly important factor when employees are applying for a job, especially for the younger generations who give greater attention to their mental conditions and lives. Companies are therefore encouraged to be equipped with facilities or services for their employee’s mental health. This applies beyond the range of mental health as well. Ultimately, these trends would render a benign competitive environment among all employers, leading to a better working environment in the general labor market.
Above all, the COVID-19 pandemic does cause fundamental changes in how people view work in terms of how it improves the labor market with a better, healthier, and overall nicer environment for the workers. The pandemic has inevitably precipitated the public’s realization of achieving their work-life balance, which shifts how the power dynamics in the workplace used to function. Consequently, employers and employees are reflecting on what they should do and where the future of workplaces hold, thus approaching a workplace with more benefits and solicitude in the entire job market. It will, prospectively, keep the labor market in the positive direction for a rather relatively long time, allowing workers nowadays to have better working experiences, along with the increasing realization that working is not the entire composition of their lives.
References
JOLTS. (2021, December). Job openings levels and unemployment levels, 2000–2021. Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/indicators/jolts/
Paychex. (2021, May 17). Creating Employee Wellness and Mental Health Programs in the Workforce. Paychex Work. https://www.paychex.com/articles/human-resources/creating-mental-health-programs-at-work
Rodriguez, E. (2021, November 1). The Great Resignation has employers sweating. It’s time to escalate the pressure. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/01/great-resignation-employers-sweating-time-to-escalate-pressure
SHRM. (2022, February 1). Interactive Chart: How Historic Has the Great Resignation Been? The Society for Human Resource Management. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/interactive-quits-level-by-year.aspx
Whitaker, B. (2022, January 9). The Great Resignation: Why more Americans are quitting their jobs than ever before. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/great-resignation-60-minutes-2022-01-10/