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“Great resignation” wave coming for companies

axios.com

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Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#11

Post by jawns »

This already happened at the company I left two months ago. We had been acquired a few months before the pandemic started, and the people who had not left by February 2020 mostly buckled down to ride things out. So there was remarkably little turnover for about 9 months. Once the vaccines got approved, it was like the dams burst, and people started leaving left and right, particularly senior engineers. (My guess is that, like me, they had dependents, so didn't want to jump ship until they felt like the worst was behind us.)

Basically a year's worth of departures in a very compressed timeframe. Not a good situation for the acquiring business, especially since they prided themselves on a longer hiring process than comparable companies.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#12

Post by elevenoh »

An anecdote: a handful engineers I've worked with (and they're all high quality) have resigned from traditional bigtech to work in open source finance within crypto.

It's as though pandemic solitude gave many the mind-time to ponder their authentic values hierarchy.

I'm glad more bright minds will be spending less time working directly or indirectly on ads. It's hard to watch.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#13

Post by blowski »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #2

Not a big deal at all. A great number of people are always looking to change their job at any given time. During the pandemic maby were reluctant to act on it, so it could have created a big delayed volume of resignations. It is not a problem because would be a lot of candidates to fill in the ranks, who too have quit their previous jobs.

I can imagine a few other factors that might be playing into this:

* People who have moved, and now want a job closer to home if they want/need to go into the office.

* Companies who have hoarded cash during the recession and can now offer big salaries.

* Looser bonds with colleagues they only see remotely

I've no idea whether and to what extent any of these things are true, but it's definitely easy to imagine a big move around. That said... I'm not seeing much change in volume on the typical job boards so perhaps it's all hypothetical.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#14

Post by nvr219 »

quititor wrote: post #3

I'm not sure I believe the conclusion based on the survey. Resigning and "thinking about quitting [your] job" are very different things. I've spent my whole working life thinking about quitting but I've rarely actually quit, the pandemic hasn't changed that.

Yeah I think 100% of workers think about quitting their job.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#16

Post by kkirsche »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #2

Not a big deal at all. A great number of people are always looking to change their job at any given time. During the pandemic maby were reluctant to act on it, so it could have created a big delayed volume of resignations. It is not a problem because would be a lot of candidates to fill in the ranks, who too have quit their previous jobs.

You may be right but this seems extremely presumptuous—how do you know the people will go back vs taking a gap year or other extended hiatus or field change?

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#17

Post by sleepychu »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #2

Not a big deal at all. A great number of people are always looking to change their job at any given time. During the pandemic maby were reluctant to act on it, so it could have created a big delayed volume of resignations. It is not a problem because would be a lot of candidates to fill in the ranks, who too have quit their previous jobs.

Synchronized resignations are definitely more of a headache than staggered ones. For example, in a normal situation if I quit my boss will be able to hire someone to replace me, knowing what my strengths and weaknesses are and what gaps my departure has created for the team. If they quit then I am a source of information to whoever is hired to replace them.

Of course anyone is replaceable but some knowledge will be lost. Also your model does not account for businesses which are aggressively expanding and doing a better job than the average employer retaining their employees by either being a genuinely great place to work or LTIPs

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#18

Post by koheripbal »

quititor wrote: post #3

I'm not sure I believe the conclusion based on the survey. Resigning and "thinking about quitting [your] job" are very different things. I've spent my whole working life thinking about quitting but I've rarely actually quit, the pandemic hasn't changed that.

Unless rent and mortgage payments somehow evaporate, there won't be some massive wave of resignations.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#20

Post by markh »

koheripbal wrote: post #18
quititor wrote: post #3

I'm not sure I believe the conclusion based on the survey. Resigning and "thinking about quitting [your] job" are very different things. I've spent my whole working life thinking about quitting but I've rarely actually quit, the pandemic hasn't changed that.

Unless rent and mortgage payments somehow evaporate, there won't be some massive wave of resignations.

And health insurance.
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