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Right. And a fair amount of it is also pent-up demand for job switching that didn't happen during the pandemic. The media is deliberately misrepresenting thes

Right. And a fair amount of it is also pent-up demand for job switching that didn't happen during the pandemic. The media is deliberately misrepresenting these stories for the click-bait. People want to read stories about quitting work because they dream of doing that themselves. But the reality is they're not quitting the work force, they're just changing jobs.

whoisthemachine 5y ago
A lot of folks are also reflexively drawn by the negativity of the headline (myself included)... "how is society going to handle no one working?!" was my initial thought, before my conscious brain caught up with my instinctive thoughts.
d82nsjk9 5y ago
> People want to read stories about quitting work because they dream of doing that themselves. But the reality is they're not quitting the work force, they're just changing jobs. I don't read "quitting jobs" as leaving the work force forever, just changing jobs. How would that even make sense? People need jobs.
etchalon 5y ago
People fantasize about quitting their job for a better job too.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  I'm sure a ton of people do both or neither, since "people" is a pretty vague category. But based on those I've talked to myself, and the popularity of reddit's antiwork sub, along with the rumblings in social discourse for the past, I dunno, 30 years or more, there are a lot of PEOPLE out there who really just want to not work at all. There's some argument about the definition of "work", since many of them might wish to do something that would be defined as work if they were paid for it by an employer. Still, others would be perfectly content becoming characters from WALL-E. I don't know how to feel about those types yet.
  - throwaway75787 5y ago
    I want to work a professional job on a reduced schedule, so that I can prioritise my personal life. 20-32 hours per week, and that can be divided a number of ways. Judging anecdotally from interviewing the past month or two (I took a year off to hone my expertise at my hobby), HR/recruiters are not exactly coping with the collective power shift to employees. I think either side is waiting to see who blinks first. It's too bad it has to be that way, but our system does pit us against each other. The way forward is to hire more people, pay people more, and give them more time off.
    - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
      You mind if I ask what your hobby is? I've been thinking about making a similar move.
  - moate 5y ago
    >>Still, others would be perfectly content becoming characters from WALL-E. I don't know how to feel about those types yet. As someone who does know how to feel about those types, let me make a suggestion: Don't. That is to say, why does it matter to you? Is it because you need their labor for your happiness ("who will make my fries/clothes/things I'm incapable of making myself")? Then it's not their fault you feel that way, and they don't owe that to you. Is it because "work = a moral good"? Then you're wrong work is a thing people do because they have to in order to be able to acquire currency for the things they actually want to do. It has no inherent morality. Is it because "Mindless consumption is a moral bad"? Of course, but only because there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. The long and short of it is you don't lose much by people opting out of working. By that I mean the type of person who was going to put in the years of work dedicated to trying to cure cancer (or advance society in whatever way you personally feel would be the most valuable) is very unlikely to also be the type of person who is only interested in doing it because they "needed a job". TL-dr: Hang the jerk who invented work on the Big Rock Candy Mountain. (Edited for formatting/grammar)
    - willcipriano 5y ago
UnpossibleJim 5y ago
Some are quitting the work force. We have an aging population and a decent amount of baby boomers (capitalized?) are retiring. Media outlets are also misrepresenting the number of boomers who have reached an age where retirement is not just an option, but expected.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  The data source here notionally separates quits from retirements, though I am not sure how well it does so (as this is not particularly straightforward for say, an employer survey for people without employer pensions, which are increasingly rare for private sector retirees. My employer has no reliable way to tell if I’m quitting to live off my private retirement savings and social security or quitting for another job or quitting to take a few months to deal with burnout and then consider my options.)
  - UnpossibleJim 5y ago
    Totally fair. I've had exit interviews and I've had jobs which didn't, and when I got laid off during the pandemic (which, luckily, didn't last long) there was no follow up when I stopped applying for unemployment, so I'm not sure how those numbers work, to be completely honest.
parkingrift 5y ago
>And a fair amount of it is also pent-up demand for job switching that didn't happen during the pandemic. Is this actually true? I've seen this numerous times over the last 8-12 months and it's always stated as if it's obviously true. But, why? Why would people have put off switching jobs until November 2021? Covid has been about the same in 95% of America since June 2020. I think there has to be some other explanation, or at least some data to support the idea that this is all just pent-up demand being released.
- dpark 5y ago
  > Why would people have put off switching jobs until November 2021? A ton of people have had well over year of working remotely while slowly losing personal connections with their teams. At the same time, people are generally reluctant to entertain a job switch in a time of uncertainty. It’s not a stretch to believe that as people accept the “new normal” they finally decide to move on. Anecdotally, I’ve seen some of this. Voluntary attrition at work tanked during the first year of COVID and then started to uptick in late summer and fall of last year.
- Cd00d 5y ago
  In my personal case I did not job search during the time you mentioned because the job I had was super flexible and I had kids at home with no child care - I put off any hunting until school was back in person (and looked stable at that).
- alienthrowaway 5y ago
  > Why would people have put off switching jobs until November 2021? Covid has been about the same in 95% of America since June 2020. I put off looking for a new job at first because I was worried about a Covid-induced major economic downturn. I didn't want to be the new person when my employer is figuring out who to fire[1]. I only pulled the trigger when the numbers rebounded (and the downturn wasn't a big as I feared, consumer spending was really strong). 1. Or my personal nightmare, getting a downturn while serving notice and the new employer change their mind about the offer while jobs evaporate all around.
GordonS 5y ago
> The media is deliberately misrepresenting these stories for the click-bait. This is a prime example of one of the main reasons I stopped reading/watching news some years back - the media thrives on click-bait and negativity, and I just don't need that in my life. Here we have something happening that many would think is good - huge numbers of people switching jobs. Instead, all the focus is on only one side of the job switch, which exactly as you said is purposely misrepresenting the facts with the express purpose of driving traffic.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  "Media" doesn't do this because they have a hidden agenda.* They are just following the profit motive. Click-bait gets clicks, which makes their ad-supported model work. I think the line in that Bond movie is, "Give the people what they want." The way to fix this issue isn't to stop consuming news, it's to pay for the news that doesn't use click bait. Obviously it's worse in the Internet age but honestly I don't think it's new. You think back to the sensational headlines that the newsies were shouting out on street corners and it's really the same thing. * well, of course some do, but I'm talking 'real' news here
  - timeon 5y ago
    > Click-bait gets clicks Power of analytics optimizing for the metrics.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    The same phenomenon seems to happen in nearly every industry. Optimizing for profit at the expense of just about everything else. Kinda seems to me like profit being at the center of everything is the problem
quitit 5y ago
I think a lot of people held on on account of so many people being laid off and many companies instigating hiring freezes. This very much feels like the exhale. It also seems to time well with the antiwork movement, which in my opinion exists as a "correction", like we'd see in other economic paradigms, sure it's probably heightened by current inflationary pressures, but it seems worker pay, especially service-jobs, is deeply needing a steep increase.

whoisthemachine 5y ago

A lot of folks are also reflexively drawn by the negativity of the headline (myself included)... "how is society going to handle no one working?!" was my initial thought, before my conscious brain caught up with my instinctive thoughts.

d82nsjk9 5y ago

> People want to read stories about quitting work because they dream of doing that themselves. But the reality is they're not quitting the work force, they're just changing jobs. I don't read "quitting jobs" as leaving the work force forever, just changing jobs. How would that even make sense? People need jobs.

etchalon 5y ago

People fantasize about quitting their job for a better job too.

jimmygrapes 5y ago
I'm sure a ton of people do both or neither, since "people" is a pretty vague category. But based on those I've talked to myself, and the popularity of reddit's antiwork sub, along with the rumblings in social discourse for the past, I dunno, 30 years or more, there are a lot of PEOPLE out there who really just want to not work at all. There's some argument about the definition of "work", since many of them might wish to do something that would be defined as work if they were paid for it by an employer. Still, others would be perfectly content becoming characters from WALL-E. I don't know how to feel about those types yet.
- throwaway75787 5y ago
  I want to work a professional job on a reduced schedule, so that I can prioritise my personal life. 20-32 hours per week, and that can be divided a number of ways. Judging anecdotally from interviewing the past month or two (I took a year off to hone my expertise at my hobby), HR/recruiters are not exactly coping with the collective power shift to employees. I think either side is waiting to see who blinks first. It's too bad it has to be that way, but our system does pit us against each other. The way forward is to hire more people, pay people more, and give them more time off.
  - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
    You mind if I ask what your hobby is? I've been thinking about making a similar move.
- moate 5y ago
  >>Still, others would be perfectly content becoming characters from WALL-E. I don't know how to feel about those types yet. As someone who does know how to feel about those types, let me make a suggestion: Don't. That is to say, why does it matter to you? Is it because you need their labor for your happiness ("who will make my fries/clothes/things I'm incapable of making myself")? Then it's not their fault you feel that way, and they don't owe that to you. Is it because "work = a moral good"? Then you're wrong work is a thing people do because they have to in order to be able to acquire currency for the things they actually want to do. It has no inherent morality. Is it because "Mindless consumption is a moral bad"? Of course, but only because there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. The long and short of it is you don't lose much by people opting out of working. By that I mean the type of person who was going to put in the years of work dedicated to trying to cure cancer (or advance society in whatever way you personally feel would be the most valuable) is very unlikely to also be the type of person who is only interested in doing it because they "needed a job". TL-dr: Hang the jerk who invented work on the Big Rock Candy Mountain. (Edited for formatting/grammar)
  - willcipriano 5y ago

UnpossibleJim 5y ago

Some are quitting the work force. We have an aging population and a decent amount of baby boomers (capitalized?) are retiring. Media outlets are also misrepresenting the number of boomers who have reached an age where retirement is not just an option, but expected.

dragonwriter 5y ago
The data source here notionally separates quits from retirements, though I am not sure how well it does so (as this is not particularly straightforward for say, an employer survey for people without employer pensions, which are increasingly rare for private sector retirees. My employer has no reliable way to tell if I’m quitting to live off my private retirement savings and social security or quitting for another job or quitting to take a few months to deal with burnout and then consider my options.)
- UnpossibleJim 5y ago
  Totally fair. I've had exit interviews and I've had jobs which didn't, and when I got laid off during the pandemic (which, luckily, didn't last long) there was no follow up when I stopped applying for unemployment, so I'm not sure how those numbers work, to be completely honest.

parkingrift 5y ago

>And a fair amount of it is also pent-up demand for job switching that didn't happen during the pandemic. Is this actually true? I've seen this numerous times over the last 8-12 months and it's always stated as if it's obviously true. But, why? Why would people have put off switching jobs until November 2021? Covid has been about the same in 95% of America since June 2020. I think there has to be some other explanation, or at least some data to support the idea that this is all just pent-up demand being released.

dpark 5y ago
> Why would people have put off switching jobs until November 2021? A ton of people have had well over year of working remotely while slowly losing personal connections with their teams. At the same time, people are generally reluctant to entertain a job switch in a time of uncertainty. It’s not a stretch to believe that as people accept the “new normal” they finally decide to move on. Anecdotally, I’ve seen some of this. Voluntary attrition at work tanked during the first year of COVID and then started to uptick in late summer and fall of last year.
Cd00d 5y ago
In my personal case I did not job search during the time you mentioned because the job I had was super flexible and I had kids at home with no child care - I put off any hunting until school was back in person (and looked stable at that).
alienthrowaway 5y ago
> Why would people have put off switching jobs until November 2021? Covid has been about the same in 95% of America since June 2020. I put off looking for a new job at first because I was worried about a Covid-induced major economic downturn. I didn't want to be the new person when my employer is figuring out who to fire[1]. I only pulled the trigger when the numbers rebounded (and the downturn wasn't a big as I feared, consumer spending was really strong). 1. Or my personal nightmare, getting a downturn while serving notice and the new employer change their mind about the offer while jobs evaporate all around.

GordonS 5y ago

> The media is deliberately misrepresenting these stories for the click-bait. This is a prime example of one of the main reasons I stopped reading/watching news some years back - the media thrives on click-bait and negativity, and I just don't need that in my life. Here we have something happening that many would think is good - huge numbers of people switching jobs. Instead, all the focus is on only one side of the job switch, which exactly as you said is purposely misrepresenting the facts with the express purpose of driving traffic.

metalliqaz 5y ago
"Media" doesn't do this because they have a hidden agenda.* They are just following the profit motive. Click-bait gets clicks, which makes their ad-supported model work. I think the line in that Bond movie is, "Give the people what they want." The way to fix this issue isn't to stop consuming news, it's to pay for the news that doesn't use click bait. Obviously it's worse in the Internet age but honestly I don't think it's new. You think back to the sensational headlines that the newsies were shouting out on street corners and it's really the same thing. * well, of course some do, but I'm talking 'real' news here
- timeon 5y ago
  > Click-bait gets clicks Power of analytics optimizing for the metrics.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  The same phenomenon seems to happen in nearly every industry. Optimizing for profit at the expense of just about everything else. Kinda seems to me like profit being at the center of everything is the problem

quitit 5y ago

I think a lot of people held on on account of so many people being laid off and many companies instigating hiring freezes. This very much feels like the exhale. It also seems to time well with the antiwork movement, which in my opinion exists as a "correction", like we'd see in other economic paradigms, sure it's probably heightened by current inflationary pressures, but it seems worker pay, especially service-jobs, is deeply needing a steep increase.