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Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

news.ycombinator.com

111–120 of 773 posts

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#111

My old boss Eric Carlsen used to say, nobody left because of money. They may get more money if they change jobs. But they start looking because they're unhappy. So when somebody asked for more money, he'd start by asking what was bothering them.

A review of the housing market should disabuse one of this notion in a very big hurry.

Sure, after a point, it's not about the money.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#112

My old boss Eric Carlsen used to say, nobody left because of money. They may get more money if they change jobs. But they start looking because they're unhappy. So when somebody asked for more money, he'd start by asking what was bothering them.

This is simply not true in many cases I’ve seen and experienced first hand. There are a lot of interesting problems and people to work with, many times the pay is the final deal breaker or maker when deciding between options (and when deciding to leave).

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#113
post #54

I'll be departing my job at the end of the month. I had too many roles, affecting too many pieces of engineering, and my title didn't reflect my work. I needed to go down to a 4 day work week and have my title reflect my roles, but my manager attempted to call my bluff and essentially said it's not going to happen. I hinted about what my decision would have to be if these accomodations couldn't be made, but he didn't…

I'm in the same situation but I don't really know what to do. I've been trying to extricate myself from a lot of stuff but the way things are structured it doesn't seem like I'm going to be able to just focus on one role. It looks like a lot of openings are offering a fair amount more than my current salary as well. The only thing holding me back at the moment is that I really like the people I work with.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#116
I'm considering leaving because the management clearly doesn't care about the developer experience. They don't have to write code for our app so they don't care how painful it is to work with.

Any attempt to convince them to give us time to improve our code is perpetually on the back burner.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#117
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is compensation #1 though? There is a threshold where you have enough money and it's easier to work with people you know and like. So, what do they need that extra money for? As I mentioned elsewhere housing is currently the #1 issues I see here in Canada that people are focused on. If you are a front line person, making $15 at a restaurant, plus renting where housing costs $1m+, you are probably looking for opti…

The threshold where you have enough has been driven up by crazy rents and house prices. Personally, I want my house paid off before I'm 40, so I shoot for maximum earnings and remote work that lets me live in a cheaper place. That ratio makes my ambition very attainable. Related is the sustainability of work: I don't want to need high earnings past 40. I want to retire into a second career I'll find more fulfilling b…

not a bad idea!

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#118
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is compensation #1 though? There is a threshold where you have enough money and it's easier to work with people you know and like. So, what do they need that extra money for? As I mentioned elsewhere housing is currently the #1 issues I see here in Canada that people are focused on. If you are a front line person, making $15 at a restaurant, plus renting where housing costs $1m+, you are probably looking for opti…

The threshold where you have enough has been driven up by crazy rents and house prices. Personally, I want my house paid off before I'm 40, so I shoot for maximum earnings and remote work that lets me live in a cheaper place. That ratio makes my ambition very attainable. Related is the sustainability of work: I don't want to need high earnings past 40. I want to retire into a second career I'll find more fulfilling b…

Why would you pay off your house when you can keep the cash in an investment account making > 5% APR vs. the house loan which presumably is in the low 3s.

Re: Poll: Why are people leaving their jobs?

#119

I suspect that the so-called Great Resignation follows a period of nobody leaving their jobs, presumably due to fear of what was to come amid the pandemic. Last year reports were indicating that a record number of people wanted to leave their jobs, but weren’t, thus giving us a glut of people ready to leave all at once instead of doing so over a longer period of time like they normally would. This would also explain…

Labor shortages are also a problem of workforce participation. While the big headline number that most news organizations cover is unemployment numbers, the one that is really important with the pandemic is Workforce Participation. AKA: "the proportion of the working-age population that is either working or actively looking for work". Check out the stats for this: [0]. We are still down 1.5% from where we were pre-pandemic (63.4 - 61.9). With the workforce age population being around 204 million people, that means that we are down about 3 million people.

[0] https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...

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