Survey: 55% of Americans expect to search for a new job
The coronavirus pandemic massively disrupted Americans’ working lives, and a new Bankrate survey suggests that it’s causing many of them to now reevaluate what they want out of their careers.
Most Americans (55 percent) who are either employed or looking for a job — what economists would describe as being in the workforce — say they are likely to look for new employment in the next 12 months, according to Bankrate’s August 2021 Job Seeker Survey. Even more surprising, some 28 percent of working Americans who currently say they’re not looking for a new job are still expecting to search for a different position at some point in the next year.
“After spending the last year or more stuck in their homes, a good number of American workers now expect to be on the move, searching for new employment,” says Mark Hamrick, Bankrate senior economic analyst and Washington bureau chief. “Pandemicinspired changes, including the ability to work remotely and/or from home, have transformed mindsets and expectations for many workers.”
Key takeaways:
• More than half (55 percent) of Americans in the workforce say they’re either somewhat or very likely to look for a new job in the next year.
• Americans are prioritizing flexible work arrangements (56 percent), higher pay (53 percent) and job security (47 percent) in their careers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
• More than two-fifths (41 percent) of Americans in the labor market expect to work remotely at least one day a week over the next year.
• More than 1 in 5 (or 21 percent) of U.S. adults lost income or became unemployed during the pandemic.
The great American work search
Among the more than half (55 percent) of Americans who say they’re going
to be looking for a new job, those were predominantly younger Americans, lowerwage workers and minorities — the groups who endured some of the harshest impacts from the coronavirus pandemic.
Nearly twice as many Generation Z (those between the ages of 18-24) and millennial (25-40) workers than baby boomers say they planned to look for a new position at some point over the next year (77 percent and 63 percent versus 33 percent, respectively), the poll found. At the same time,
more than 2 in 5 (or 45 percent) of Gen Xers say they’re going to hunt for new employment.
When it comes to income levels, about 72 percent of those who earn under $30,000 per year are planning to look for a new job, compared with 44 percent of those who make $80,000 and more annually.
Meanwhile, nearly 7 in 10 Black and Hispanic Americans (or 67 percent each) plan to hunt for a new position, compared with 47 percent of whites.
That comes at a time when the number of Americans voluntarily quitting their jobs is near an alltime high for a third straight month, suggesting Americans are feeling more confidence in their career prospects following the worst unemployment crisis in a lifetime.
All of that points to continued challenges for employers in the months ahead, as they attempt to not only lure workers back to a job but also retain them.
Yet, 46 percent of those surveyed are not expecting to search for a new job in the next year, according to Bankrate’s survey. That includes 20 percent who indicated that they weren’t too likely and another 26 percent who mentioned they were not at all likely.
Those tended to be individuals already employed and currently saying they’re looking for a job, with nearly threequarters (or 72 percent) of that group mentioning they were at least not too likely to search for a new position in the next year.
Complaints of labor shortages have been heating up for months, with the roughly 10.1 million job openings now outnumbering the 8.7 million unemployed individuals, according to the latest data from the Department of Labor.
About 20 percent of those in Bankrate’s poll indicated that they’re currently unemployed, half of which (10 percent) indicated they’re not currently looking for a new job.
Work flexibility, higher pay
Americans are thinking more carefully about what they want out of their careers because of the pandemic, with the experience elevating the remote work and flexibility issue among workers, Bankrate’s survey suggests.
What are Americans who are currently in the workforce looking for in their jobs? Predominantly work flexibility, with 56 percent indicating that they’d prefer remote work or adjustable working hours. That slightly outnumbers those who say they’d want higher pay (53 percent).