The remote worker who jets off to Bali newly unburdened by the crutches of office life makes for provocative headlines but is not the reality of what the Great Resignation is -- the majority of people who quit their jobs in the last few years came from service and retail.
"The phenomenon officially began around late 2020 or early 2021, after the quit rate (the number of monthly resignations divided by total employment) dropped sharply during the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic due to a shortage of work as a result of large-scale shutdowns," TheStreet staff wrote in an earlier explainer on the phenomenon.
The Food And Accommodation Industry Is In Trouble
Looking at data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the document platform SmallPDF found that accommodation and food was by far the industry that most workers were leaving.
Between April and August 2022, it lost 5.8% of its workers. An average of 773,600 workers left every month.
While the exodus has been years in the making, it is getting worse in this segment of the economy -- 128,000 more workers left the industry in August 2022 than at the same time last year.
Many store and mall workers are also not happy with current conditions as the retail industry had the second-highest quit rate on the ranking -- 3.82% or 600,400 workers left between April and August (the numbers could be higher or lower as the rate is adjusted to the total size of the industry.)
The loosely defined "professional and business services" took fourth place and, with 754,000 exits and a 3.36% quit rate, that's where many remote professionals come in.
Transportation and warehousing, construction, health care, and manufacturing are some of the other industries with a much higher-than-average quit rate.
An average of 199,400 pilots, bus drivers, and truck drivers left their job every month between April and August.
This Is What Employers Should (And Shouldn't) Be Doing?
"The news has been filled with stories about unionizing within companies, striking and more due to wages and treatment issues from employees, and this data highlights which industries are losing the largest part of their workforce," a SmallPDF representative said in a statement.
While the exact reasons for quitting are always individual, departures ultimately come down to employees feeling that their work can be be better compensated or valued more elsewhere.
Amid a nationwide labor shortage, this is actually the case in many industries. Employers in particularly in-demand fields have to compete to recruit competitors by offering higher wages.
"Be sure to talk to your key employees about their needs and work preferences. If they express a desire for more work-life balance, offering them increased flexibility may be an effective way to prevent unwanted departures," writes Brett Fellows, CFP, for TheStreet's Retirement Daily.
The situation also varies greatly depending on one's specific job. Healthcare has been notoriously understaffed for years, while the tech industry is currently in the midst of some very high-profile layoffs. Many industries are seeing the reverse trend: a stabling after months of resignations.
"I think most people saw that they are in demand and have options are but we're certainly slowing down on that," Svenja Gudell, the chief economist at the Recruit Holdings (RCRRF) -owned job-searching platform Indeed.com, told TheStreet in an exclusive interview in October. "The quit rate has come down a lot although it's still elevated in some sections. Leisure and hospitality is still seeing a fair bit of churn."
