The technological revolution continues its relentless march, reshaping not just industries, but the very fabric of the workforce. While advancements in cloud computing, 5G, and automation promise unprecedented productivity, their impact on individual workers is complex and profound. The so-called "Great Resignation" may have subsided, but its aftershocks continue to reverberate through the professional landscape. This article explores the intricate relationship between technological advancement, the changing dynamics of the job market, and the evolving attitudes towards work itself in the post-pandemic era. The world marches on indeed, but are we with it?

Facts are Fu- n

It is first important to recognize that the recent plugged-in era has technically seen a net positive job creation overall, albeit with major shifts in the skills demanded. Utilizing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to retrieve insights for the American workforce at large in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. We can examine that in this 4-year period, the overall American workforce grew at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 2.43%. However, a known limitation we must recognize with amalgamated datasets from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (CEW) - is that it counts all of this per employer, not employee. It's counting positions not individuals. This means a person may hold several positions and be duplicated across the spreadsheet! Crucially, the data offered is obviously far from granular, it aggregates everything under one flag - meaning that as long as the USA nets productivity in the end, it remains in the black, and conceals or downplays potentially significant industry challenges. Much less does this even begin to peer into the black box of true employee sentiment and satisfaction.

The fact that the BLS officially reports positives from 2020-2023 does not erase potential losses and shifts. According a a report from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) project, above, also accessible through BLS (the first two are the same datapoints presented as units v. %), we see a correlating but interesting trend when we review the underlying data. This set, gathered over the same period, is based on info gathered from working people on openings, hirings, separations, and the like. It also provides a far more desirable level of granularity and nuance.

I'm Trying to Quit, OK

We can see that, at COVID-19's violent arrival, the job openings rate hit a dismal 3.4% - the worst in a decade. Then, it exploded unlike ever in history from mid 2021 - 2022, when the job openings rate steadily maintained 7% for a year. That meteoric ascent also faces a dramatic scaling-down, as the jobs openings rate has since freefallen - down 36% from the peak 7% to 4.5%, and expected to continue dipping. Job openings go down, number of employed people goes up, and vice versa. The teeter is totter-ing, we're fine. But then, where did all the jobs come from? Did Joe cast some voodoo? The most direct correlating datapoint available tells a fascinating tale, in fact: quitting. During the Great Recession, we saw the lowest rate of quitting since the turn of the century, at 1.2% in September of 2009. Since then, it embarked on a steady decade-long growth, surpassing the approximate 2.3% it had fallen from - then COVID happened. Predictably, in April 2020 the rate of quitting fell to 1.5% - or in other words: People who hated their jobs were as scared as of not finding other work as they'd been since the housing crisis. Like - not as scared, clearly, but scared enough to stay put at least. HOWEVER, apparently thousands were able to use the COVID shutdown to masterplan their escapes!

These eerily similar charts illustrate an inherently interwoven point. In the year between April 2020 - April 2021, the quitting rate shot up astronomically, by 80% from where it was! It had legitimately taken a decade after the crisis to again reach (and surpass) the average quitting rate up to that time, roughly 2.3%. Despite and still, in that one year, it hit 2.7% - not only reestablishing the prior rate, but exceeding it by a 17% increase. The data illustrates how between April 2020 - August 2020, merely over the COVID spring and summer, the number of job openings jumped by 37%. Coinciding and contributing significantly was the simultaneous 80% bump we were seeing in the rate of resignations. When the pandemic hit, thousands of Americans reactionarily made exit plans. The quitting rate then maintained its height through January of 2023, peaking at 3% and averaging 2.76% over the period. More people were quitting in that time than ever. The quitting movement was especially fueled by all the controversy surrounding the surge in desire for remote/hybrid positions - amid many firms who wanted to "go back to normal," versus opposing employees, who fought to keep some of the COVID changes permanently. We are now down to 1.9% as we continue a downward trend in employee resignations, we will have half the the people quitting in January than we had quitting in the peak season two years ago. It's fair to say that this may conflate with marginally less employment opportunity, as it clearly correlates so distinctly - not everyone who leaves will reenter their respective places. It could also indicate a growing anxiety regarding instability in the economy, enticing people with possibly less than ideal situations to make lemonade - as its increasingly not the time to go to market. The subsequent decline in both quit rates and job openings suggests a return to a more typical labor market dynamic, though the long-term impact of the Great Resignation remains to be seen.

How We Doin'?

We've seen hard evidence of the unique symptoms the American workforce has experienced, but all statistics are in the end is consequential. Timestamps we try to make oracles of. Where's the story behind it? What were workers actually feeling during this tumultuous period? To understand this so-called Great Resignation, we need to delve into the qualitative aspects - the junction of the emotions, motivations, and aspirations that drove millions to rethink their relationship with work.

In this hard-pressed, stagflating era, who even has time to talk about feelings at all? Apparently, the Pew Research Center. Overall: there is 51% of the workforce reporting satisfaction, 37% reporting apathy, and 12% reporting unhappiness in their working situations. When we take on the data, and look past the amalgam, it surprisingly makes it clear: management is ACTUALLY NOT the problem - or at least, quantifiably, not as recently as 2023. Middle management tends to be America's punching bag of choice: just far enough above to layman to inspire envy and vitriol, yet hardly any richer than them - and accordingly, human-shielded by the actual robber barons. It's economy plus, in exchange for a middle seat. As it turns out, everyone "hating their manager" is just a myth gone loose in the American zeitgeist. In fact, manager satisfaction won a supermajority of 62% of surveyed workers, runner-up only to co-worker relationships at 67%. These two statistics are ultimately what hold up the satisfaction score to just breaking half. Want to know the anchor(s) holding it down? Shocker: pay is a major concern. This is a shocker - because it's not number one.

American professionals at large overwhelmingly responded that the single weightiest factor on job satisfaction was opportunities for upward mobility. 33% felt satisfied with the opportunities available to them, 34% felt apathetic, and 32% reported feeling unhappy. Pay has nearly as many satisfied respondents as upward mobility, but has a higher amount of people who feel apathetic towards their earnings, as opposed to outright unhappy. Whether they're envisioning it through promotions, or raises within their current roles, it is crystal clear: Americans are anxious and stressed that they are not going to have enough money to be okay. Many would argue that the key to improvement of these gaps is more rigorous feedback, mentorships, and development programs. Corporations have previously implemented such things successfully - these suggestions do have merit. However, in the data itself, the clearly disproportionate and key issue is equal parts demonstrated by whether the respondents envisioned their bank accounts or futures: earnings. Americans desperately want to make more money, yes - but more than anything, and most importantly: we do not want to stay where we are. Evidently, we are a restless people, but anything but lazy.