This is despite a cost of living crisis and a looming recession.
Find out why some employees are actually on their second round of resignations in a year, known as a repeat quit.
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Despite a looming recession, the ‘Great Resignation’ is not letting up in the US.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS), 4.2 million US workers quit in July – this is in line with June figures. It brings the quit rate in the US to 2.7%.
JOLTS found that recruitment also remained flat (4.2%) with 6.4 million Americans being hired into new jobs in July 2022. There were 11.2 million job openings in July – this remained unchanged on June’s data.
Indeed senior economist AnnElizabeth Konkel told Business Insider: “Today’s report emphasizes again that we are not in a recession. It just shows that workers have plenty of choices.”
HR management company ADP also published data on hires. In August, the number of private sector employees on payroll increased 132,000; this is a slight drop from the 270,000 rise seen in July.
ADP also found that wages increased 7.6% – and job switching was the best way to get a pay rise with job stayers getting a median 7.6% in wage increases, whereas job changers saw a 16.1% hike.
The era of repeat quits
With the ‘Great Resignation’ being over a year old, the data shows that repeat quits are starting to happen.
This is where employees realize that the job they took during the ‘Great Resignation’ wasn’t quite what they expected, so they have resigned once again for a new opportunity.
While some of them may return (or boomerang back) to their old company – a phenomenon UNLEASH has termed the ‘Great Return’ – others are looking for an entirely new opportunity.
This may explain why despite a looming recession and resignations remaining high, hiring is also staying solid in the US.
Talking about the repeat quit phenomenon, Glassdoor’s chief economist Aaron Terrazas told Insider: “I actually think there’s an echo boom in quits.
“We should expect around 12 months after the initial wave of resignations some proportion of workers and employers will realize that it wasn’t a good match — and be back on the market.”
This trend suggests that employers need to work even harder to not just attract workers but to retain them. It is very expensive and time-consuming to recruit new workers, particularly if they only end up staying at your company for a short period of time.
Now is the time for employers to dial up their employee listening and find out why they are struggling to retain new hires.
Ultimately, it is crucial that organizations live up to the promises they made during the recruitment process – particularly around the main causes of the ‘Great Resignation’: flexibility, career development and burnout.
