More Workers Quitting Their Jobs

Filed under: Personal Finance, Careers, News, The Economy, Lynnette Khalfani-Cox

In TV-land, people may get their hustle on, trying to impress a boss like Donald Trump. But in the real world, large numbers of Americans aren’t waiting around for someone to say: “You’re fired!” Instead, an increasing number of U.S. employees are quitting their jobs, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal says that in February, the number of workers saying “I quit” surpassed the number of employees getting laid off — the first time that’s happened since October 2008.

The Journal reports that two main factors are at play. First, unlike during the peak of the recession, when jobs were more scarce and people worried more about job security, workers today seem to feel that they have more employment options. Therefore, there is some amount of natural turnover as people simply quit to pursue other opportunities, or resign because they get frustrated about not getting expected promotions.

Additionally, other people are quitting due to low morale. Scores of workers have watched their colleagues get pink slips. Then those same workers still on the job are often asked to do more work to pick up the slack. Apparently, a growing number of people are saying: “Thanks, but no thanks” and deciding to voluntarily leave those jobs.

This report fascinated me, mainly because in many cases, you have to practically pry someone’s dead fingers away from certain jobs. For whatever reasons (and most of them boil down to financial reasons), U.S. workers can absolutely hate their jobs, but often refuse to quit. I hear people complain all the time about incompetent bosses, low pay, crazy co-workers… you name it. But those same complaining people almost never leave that bad employment situation.

So it’s encouraging to see that perhaps a lot more workers are getting up the gumption to exit unsatisfying jobs. I’m sure a nice percentage of these people won’t just float to new employers, but will actually start their own businesses. If so, that could be a boon to those start-up entrepreneurs, and to our overall economy as well.

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