What is "The Great Resignation"? Tens of millions in the US, UK and Europe are dumping their old jobs. And the demand for less hours at work is rising
From Inc. magazine
A real collective shift seems to be underway, as Covid’s multiple effects cascade through populations, around working hours. The sentiment seems to be: we were doing too much (and that, too meaninglessly) before Covid.
Many workers, as captured in some opinion polls here from James Bloodworth in the New Statesman, want some big changes:
It seems that much of the [UK] public quite like aspects of the “new normal”. According to a recent YouGov poll, a majority of workers said they would prefer to work from home either full time or at least some of the time. Another study found that 61 per cent of people would be willing to take a pay cut to maintain remote working status.
As Covid took hold, things that were previously out of the question – greater levels of public spending, flexible working arrangements, an end to homelessness – suddenly became part of the fabric of reality. Those with a vested interest in the old way of doing things are today faced with a dilemma. Either they accept the “new normal” or they try to frighten people back to the office with dire warnings about everything from terrorism to “lazy” office workers who “just want to watch Loose Women”.
It isn’t just working from home that the public seems to like. New polling for Survation has found that nearly 50 per cent of the public would be in favour of altering the 9am to 5pm five-day work week altogether.
Today, our rigid adherence to office nine-to-five culture is arguably a fetter on productivity (it’s certainly a bigger barrier to productivity than workers watching daytime TV). Indeed, recent surveys have found that productivity is often higher when employees are allowed to work from home.
Bigger trials in Iceland, which included 1 per cent of the country’s workforce, were so successful that 86 per cent of workers have subsequently shortened their hours or gained the right to do so. During the trials, which took place between 2015 and 2019, productivity stayed the same or increased according to researchers.
Of course, productivity shouldn’t be the only relevant metric. An increase in leisure time would probably do most of us good. Indeed, progress was considered synonymous with expanded leisure time for the reformers of the 20th century, something worth remembering today as we are marinated in an exploitative hustle culture that teaches us to “rise and grind” and do little else.
More here. Add to this the phenomenon known as “The Great Resignation”, as reported by the BBC—
People are leaving their jobs – or thinking about it – in droves. A Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 global workers showed that 41% of workers were considering quitting or changing professions this year, and a study from HR software company Personio of workers in the UK and Ireland showed 38% of those surveyed planned to quit in the next six months to a year. In the US alone, April saw more than four million people quit their jobs, according to a summary from the Department of Labor – the biggest spike on record.
And by Wired UK—
As more of the economy reopens following Covid vaccinations and the end of social restrictions, demand for talent is fast outstripping supply – it’s now an employee’s market.
In May, jobs site Reed.co.uk had its highest number of monthly postings since 2008. In August another 250,000 roles went live on the site. “The surge in opportunities contrasts with the severe slowdown in the jobs market last year, with reports of openings receiving thousands of applicants,” says Simon Wingate, the company’s managing director. According to his site, opportunities advertising remote work have grown more than four-fold compared to before the pandemic.
It’s not just hospitality, logistics and entertainment experiencing labour shortages. Seismic contractions through lockdown have been followed by economies and industries rebounding in a big way this year, some even stronger than before Covid. Intense growth, coupled with the flexibility of remote work, means white-collar workers have more choice where they ply their trade than ever before.
It’s those conditions that are creating the perfect resignation storm. “In the past six months the friction to move has been completely eroded,” explains John Goulding, CEO and founder of employee communication platform Workvivo. “Someone can finish at a company on a Friday evening, have a new laptop delivered, and start a new job on Monday morning without leaving home.”
What’s fascinating is we so clearly need a new language around labour - one that moves away from “the work ethic”, and any employment having automatic dignity.
We expected that Covid would shatter many certainties. But the experiences its furloughs and quarantines have had on workers, while extremely variable (front-line care and retail workers for examples), apparently have generated the kind of workforce “waking up” that the labour movement only fitfully manages.
Is it the overlap of a direct health threat to friends and friendly—and our troubled awareness of how deeply that’s connected to the climate crisis and modern times—that’s now shaking the certainties of the produce-to-consume life?