The pandemic has triggered tremendous changes in the labor market, with more than 20 million workers losing their jobs in March and April 2020, followed by a wave of uneven hiring. Many businesses have found it hard to retain workers, though, as many employees have used the pandemic to reevaluate their situations, lured by hiring bonuses, more-flexible hours or better working conditions.
The number of workers quitting in November is up from the 4.2 million who left or changed jobs in October and surpassed the previous record of 4.4 million in September.
The number of people who left jobs for other opportunities in November made up 3.0 percent of the workforce, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
“This is the tightest labor market ever,” said Julia Pollak, economist at the jobs site ZipRecruiter. “These are not quits from the labor force but quits from lower paying jobs to higher paying jobs, from less prestigious jobs to better, more prestigious jobs, from less flexible jobs to more flexible jobs.”
The survey also found about 10.6 million job openings, well more than the 6.9 million people currently listed as unemployed. The scarcity of workers — there are about 1.5 jobs for every unemployed worker — has helped give workers more leverage. In the months before the pandemic, there were often about 2.4 unemployed people for every job, Pollak said. After recessions, when the economy shrinks, that number is typically even higher. But the pandemic has upended the old patterns of the labor market.
The numbers of resignations and job changes was highest among restaurant and bar workers, retail workers, arts and recreation workers — all industries that were among the most severely impacted by the pandemic — and those in professional and business services.
Nearly 7 percent of restaurant and bar workers changed or quit jobs in November; 4.4 percent of retail workers did.
Pollak said that quits rates were higher in industries that have seen larger wage growth over the last year, as businesses have raced to outcompete each other for available workers. On surveys ZipRecruiter has done, many job seekers report seeking out new types of work — and many say they are looking to work remotely because of family, childcare, or safety concerns.
Employers in many industries have been complaining about labor shortages for nearly a year.
The dearth of workers has caused a scramble by many to raise wages or offer generous signing bonuses. Staffing problems have coursed through the worlds of tourism and hospitality, with hotels, restaurants and bars reporting trouble finding workers, as have employers in trucking, construction, transportation and other industries.
Many workers also have sought different types of employment as safety concerns and child- and family-care issues remain a lingering aspect of the pandemic.
This in turn has led to many workers’ changing jobs or industries for better opportunities, as job sites report elevated numbers of people looking to change industries and work from home. Other workers have been prompted into early retirements or have left the labor force entirely, causing the participation rate to tick down.
But, overall, the labor market recovery was strong in 2021, as the country added more than 500,000 jobs a month through the first 11 months of the year.
There are concerns now about a slowdown after November’s numbers came in below expectations. How strongly the latest coronavirus surge will affect the labor market remains an open question.
