Open for negotiations
4.3 million Americans quit or changed jobs in December as omicron variant disrupted market
Some 4.3 million people quit or changed jobs in December — down from last month’s all-time high but still near record levels, as the labor market remained unsettled and the omicron variant swept through the United States.
Employers reported some 10.9 million job openings in the survey, well above pre-pandemic averages.
December proved to be an incredibly disruptive month for the U.S. labor market.
Parents scrambled to navigate their work lives as schools and day cares closed because of growing cases. Employees grappled with sudden outbreaks at work, with little of the social safety net protections or pandemic-controlling measures that helped cushion the blow from earlier waves. And a vaccine-evading variant shook the nation’s confidence that a future without the virus was on the near horizon.
The elevated quitting data, which represented nearly 3% of the country’s employed population, is another window into how the labor market’s patterns have been upended by the pandemic.
While the crisis was originally marked by mass joblessness — more than 20 million people lost their jobs in the earliest days of the pandemic, many temporarily — 2021 was defined by a strong labor market recovery as well as complaints by employers about difficulty finding available workers.
That shortage has meant that many companies have been racing to compete with each other for workers, raising wages, adding cash bonuses and sweetening the pot in other ways to try to attract applicants. And that in turn has created a climate for workers to have more leverage and options than perhaps any other time in recent history.
Industries with the highest levels of workers quitting or leaving for other jobs were accommodation and food services, with 6.1% of workers quitting; retail, with 4.9% of workers quitting; trade, transportation and utilities, with 3.8% of workers quitting; and professional and business services, with 3.7% of workers quitting.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey has captured this new dynamic, marking a record number of workers quitting or switching jobs four times in 2021. The volume of job openings surged to new highs in 2021, as well. Wages too have risen steadily, as another reflection of the tight labor market, but the gains have largely been negated by inflation so far. The continued threat of the coronavirus, particularly for in-person work, continues to complicate employment options, as well.
The labor market had one of its most impressive years of growth ever in 2021, averaging more than 500,000 jobs added a month, but the United States still has more than 3 million jobs less than it had before the pandemic.