COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)–More Americans are quitting their jobs than ever before, according to a report from the Department of Labor. It said more than 4.3 million people decided to leave their job in August.
Economists are calling this the “Great Resignation,” and will become even greater as time goes on.
The started in April as pandemic restrictions started to ease up across the country, and employees had started deciding if or how they were going to go back to work. Every month since then, a new record number of people have left their current jobs.
Those jobs have not disappeared and they still need to be filled. However, because workers are refusing to take the jobs, employers had to adapt by adding benefits, raising wages, and making do with the staff they have.
One economist said this is actually a good sign for the economy.
“This is one of the better ways to be coming out of a very severe economic downturn,” said Bill Adams who is a PNC Bank Economist.” Having a tight labor market, demand booming, struggling with ways to keep up with consumer demand is much better than what we had after the 2008-09 downturn where businesses struggled to find customers for years, hiring was very weak and it was very difficult to find a job.”
There is a concern that rising wages will cause the prices of food and other needs to go up. Economists said that is a valid concern and businesses also run the risk of driving customers away if that happens.