London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

Why workers just won’t stop quitting

Why workers just won’t stop quitting

The Great Resignation was triggered by the pandemic – so why aren’t resignations slowing down now as it wanes?

When people first began leaving their jobs en masse in early 2021, experts generally believed that the “Great Resignation” was a direct side effect of pandemic chaos and uncertainty.

Many workers quit due to Covid-19 safety concerns or because their companies didn’t provide adequate remote-work support. Millions more left for more autonomy or meaning in their work; many of these shifts linked to lockdown reflection. And others quit for more money elsewhere, as the labour market tightened.

But something unexpected is happening now. Even with Covid restrictions mostly lifted and the pandemic waning in many countries, the resignation letters are still piling up. Despite widespread predictions of a slowdown, data shows not only are people still leaving positions in spades, but many workers who haven’t resigned yet plan to do so in coming months.

Experts suggest that two factors are fueling this trend. While the pandemic served as the trigger, the seeds of the Great Resignation were sown well before – and until the deep-rooted factors causing workers to quit are addressed, resignations are unlikely to subside. People are also now looking at work and the role they want it to play in their lives in a different way, and switching to jobs that better align with their new values. And, say the experts, the extent to which the looming slowdown will affect these quit rates remains to be seen.

Pandemic powder keg


Jobs numbers tell the story of a quitting epidemic that just hasn’t subsided.

This is especially true in the US. Quit numbers were generally consistent throughout 2021, when an average of nearly 4 million people left their jobs each month. That’s more than half a million more than 2019’s monthly averages. In January 2019, there were roughly 7 million job openings in the US; a year later, the number of open positions grew to 11.26 million.

The behaviour has spilled over into this year, too. At the end of March 2022, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) showed a record high of 11.5 million job openings. And there’s good reason to believe attrition will continue, including outside the US: a PwC survey of more than 52,000 workers across 44 countries showed one-fifth plan to leave their job in the next year. Other studies turn up even bigger numbers, such as data from the Conference Board, which indicates this number may be 30% for US workers. In a separate survey of 1,000 UK workers, almost a third said they’re planning to quit soon.

Some of these things have been bubbling over the past decade or more, and the pandemic really just put a magnifying glass over it all – Kristie McAlpine


The pandemic has, of course, been the catalyst for the Great Resignation, says Kristie McAlpine, professor of management at Rutgers University School of Business – Camden, US. The global health crisis caused a shift in priorities, she explains, that kicked off the quitting wave.

“We were going through a time where we lost millions of people,” she says. “It’s hard to imagine how that can all occur and not kind of force us to think about what’s important to us.”

While some workers were re-evaluating their values, other factors led people to leave, too: frontline healthcare providers, service workers, teachers and others working in high-risk roles, sometimes for low pay or with little support, burnt out or walked out. People nearing retirement cut out of the workforce early to escape the pandemic. Huge numbers of parents, especially women, were forced to quit because of a sudden lack of childcare. Plus, a year or so into the pandemic, a shift in the labour market’s supply-and-demand equation in favour of workers made leaving a job and finding a new one less daunting than before.

Yet while the pandemic may have provided the spark, explains McAlpine, the Great Resignation is a powder keg that had been building for some time. “Quit rates have been steadily increasing over the past 10 years,” she says. “That's not something that just started with the pandemic. It certainly exacerbated some trends.”

Before the pandemic, Baby Boomers, a quarter of the US workforce in 2018, were already moving steadily into retirement. Low wages in service work and a minimum wage that had fallen behind the rate of inflation meant discontent was growing among blue-collar workers. And presenteeism and a culture that equated long hours with hard work was pushing knowledge workers to burnout. “Some of these things have been bubbling over the past decade or more, and the pandemic really just put a magnifying glass over it all,” says McAlpine.

Given that the pandemic served as the accelerant for mass resignations, rather than the original cause, says McAlpine, it’s unrealistic to think getting past the pandemic means the quitting will simply cease. The nuanced issues that precipitated the Great Resignation took a long time to build, and they may take a long time to resolve.

In the wake of the pandemic, experts believe many people are looking for a career change or work they find more meaningful


Post-pandemic factors


At the moment, says Anthony C Klotz, a professor of management at University College London's School of Management who coined the term “Great Resignation”, quit rates have more or less plateaued, but he doesn’t expect them to drop in any meaningful way in the immediate future.

In addition to the original push factors, he says that the reasons people are resigning have diversified. For instance, some workers are now swapping jobs that require them to be present in the workplace for remote positions; other workers, he says, are leaving remote jobs for ones that have a larger in-person component.

Some of the moves are getting even bigger, as people leave not just their jobs, but their professions entirely. “It’s not just about what's happening in an industry,” he says. “And that kind of supports the notion that people are looking for a change coming out of the pandemic or they're not afraid to completely switch to a new chapter of their career.”

McAlpine concurs, saying the role a job plays in someone’s life has shifted, which could permanently change the way people select positions and whether they stay or go. “Of course, people want to be compensated fairly, but they're also looking for some connection and meaning in what they do,” she says. Workers may be looking for ways to restore wellbeing, adds Klotz, noting that moving to a new job is often an attempt to reclaim wellness.

Klotz also believes that resignations have become somewhat self-perpetuating, potentially prolonging the period of quitting. “Turnover contagion is real,” he says. “When you have colleagues who leave first, it's almost always a bummer, because usually it's a little bit more work for you. At the same time, though, it puts the idea in your head that it's doable to make that leap. It’s hard to stop that cycle of resignations for organisations, because with each one, it's like it logically puts the idea in other people's minds about the possibility of it.”

A lasting shift?


While Klotz believes these quit numbers are poised to stay high in the short-term, the impending economic downturn and general uncertainty around the future of the labour market could change things down the line.

It’s reasonable to think a major recession would, at the very least, slow down the quit rate. “It would stand to reason that if a recession comes in, the job market gets worse. So, there's fewer options for employees to switch from one company to another. Because there just aren't as many jobs, resignations should absolutely go down,” says Klotz. “Maybe not as much as they would have before the pandemic, but they'll definitely drop.”

Already there are some signs high living costs and inflation are influencing worker behaviour; in the UK, data points to a “Great Unretirement” as older people return to the workforce to make ends meet. Other data, meanwhile, suggests more ‘boomerang employees’ are returning to previous roles in the wake of pandemic moves.

But it’s unclear, says McAlpine, whether even a global financial crisis would be enough to stem the tide of the Great Resignation and keep people in jobs they want to leave. “We’ll see what happens if we do indeed head into a recession,” she says. “But I think that as long as workers have an understanding of what they're looking for, employers are going to have to make some changes in order to accommodate that. And it seems like people will be willing to leave if they don't get it.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×