Ask HN: Is the Great Resignation in tech real? If so, why?

According to the media and from watching my professional circle, it seems that many are indeed changing jobs with significant pay raises--the so-called Great Resignation.

I'd like to hear from HN about job changes and raises. Anecdotes are welcome, but ideally one of us works in HR and has systematic data.

But more importantly, I'd like to think through the reasons driving the Great Resignation. Below are several explanations with my own assessments.

1. People die from Covid, reducing the labor force. -> Irrelevant for tech workers

2. People get large checks from the gov and are not pressured to find job. -> Irrelevant for tech workers

3. People avoided changing jobs during the pandemic. So the high turnover now is simply making up for low turnover in 2020. -> This does explain the high turnover, but not the significant raises. Indeed, the number of workers and jobs remains the same--people are shuffling between places. To be convinced of this theory, I'd like to see that raises are flat.

3. Senior workers are retiring early due to pandemic-related revelation. Mid-level workers are thus getting more promos than usual. -> Seems plausible. To be convinced, I need to see mid-level workers getting raises, and entry-level workers NOT getting raises.

4. [My theory] Remote work allows better matching of people and jobs. Imagine that person A can deliver lots of value to company B, but is hitherto prevented to do so due to location. With remote work, Person A can now work for Company B and get paid higher accordingly. -> To be convinced, I need to see that remote job offers have higher comp vs comparable non-remote job offers. If this theory is true, then the Great Resignation/Remote Work makes the job market more efficient, creates value for society, and should be celebrated by employees and employers alike.

5. [My theory] The pandemic pushes society forward in terms of tech adoption, making tech workers even more valuable than before. -> Seems plausible, since tech has become more valuable as a whole (e.g. stock price), not just salary. If this theory is true, then it is again a good thing for both tech workers and the broader society.

Also, the building of the new Amazon HQ is having an effect on the DC Metro area labor pool.

I think inflation is a part of it. There is more money around but always the same internal reluctance to give raises that match the market. So higher inflation implies that more people have to switch jobs in order to take advantage.

I think, quite simply, remote work in the tech sector has redefined work-life balance. Rather than work 9-5 and go home and disconnect, you can mix and match personal and work tasks throughout the day. This reduction in sole focus on "work time" has led a lot of us to realize that work isn't everything. As such, for those who have significant savings, resigning and taking a sabbatical or an early retirement is an attractive option as it allows us to maximize our life balance.

For others, the taste of flexible remote work is preferred and so they'll resign and find a job that better suits their desired work-life balance.

Consequently, because companies are more flexible on location since they're remote, competition to hire talent has become a national game and not just a localized one. Therefore, salaries _must_ go up across the board to pay the risk premium of folks going to a FAANG. As such, companies that want top-talent in the midwest are going to have to pay significantly closer to Bay Area/FAANG rates, or settle for less than top talent (which is likely). For those who fall into the upper echelons of talent, though, the compensation and location are no longer mutually exclusive ventures. Again, this expansion of the game makes finding new work more attractive and with significant, and sufficient, savings, resignation is suitable while they lackadaisically find their next opportunity.

I think there a variety of factors at play in the tech sector driving hiring trends:

1. There are, in fact, tech companies that still demand employees come into a physical office. There comes a tipping point in a laborer's market (tech being one of them) where this becomes sufficient reason to leave when there are plenty of reasonable alternatives that don't require employees be physically present.

2. Mental health is often overlooked in these discussions. The pandemic has been a huge source of stress, uncertainty, and general chaos. Many people (myself included) lost their usual outlets of stress (going out, meeting with friends, catching up with family, etc). From personal experience, this lead me to having a spat of time where I was burned out and had to lay off working at all for several months before joining a new organization. From what I hear, I'm far from the only one who's gone through such an experience.

3. In light of COVID, many people are facing the realities of mortality much earlier and more frequently than they would prior to a pandemic. Many of us have lost friends or loved ones if not to COVID, than to COVID caused problems (mental health, substance abuse, health problems that became critical due to lack of ER capacity). Having a brush with death is a strong incentive for people to reevaluate their situations and reexamine how they spend their time. For many people, work is not fulfilling and they may be more willing to adjust their lifestyle to prioritize things important to them that don't require as much money; or things that take them to other careers; OR give folks a kick in the pants to demand more from their current employers.

I suspect there's more to this trend; more nuance than is being captured by the current news cycles. The US has a diverse population of people in a variety of situations and the driving factors for hiring trends for bay area companies are likely not indicative of what employees are seeing from their side of the table.