Covid-19’s side effects: Millions feel burnout, quit jobs in the US en masse
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a strange mid-life crisis for professionals who are quitting jobs in droves in the US, complaining of burnout in their stressful jobs, or taking advantage of new possibilities, particularly in the technology, healthcare, and hospitality sectors.
This mass exodus from jobs amid a massive reshuffling has created a crisis as the exit of talented and experienced employees has left a vacuum. New recruits will anyway come expensive, take time to settle down, and gain experience.
According to media reports, over four million employees resigned in the US in August 2021 alone, mainly in the hospitality and IT sectors. Mid-career workers and those in technology and healthcare are quitting for better pay and positions, but also to feel more valued at work. Working remotely digitally has killed old relationships with colleagues and acquaintances most times.
Many employees, having got used to work-from-home for over 18 months now, feel alienated returning to their reopening offices as some of their old colleagues have already quit, and they have no tuning with the new ones. At the most, they want to continue working remotely or quit jobs.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics recently said an unprecedented over 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August in the “Great Resignation” or the “Big Quit.”
It is being billed as a sort of workers’ uprising, even revolution, against bad bosses and tone-deaf companies that refuse to pay well and take advantage of their staff.
“The pandemic has reset people’s purpose in life,” Jerome Ternynck, CEO of the hiring platform SmartRecruiters, was quoted as saying.
Reports said in this strange job market, employees are not only looking to switch their employers, but they are also taking advantage of the market boom to move up in their own careers – getting positions with higher salaries and advancement opportunities.
In a national survey, 25 percent of Americans reported working under a different employer than the one they had before the pandemic, and 26 percent of those employees are earning a salary at least 10 percent higher than their last one.
The ‘negative job crisis’ has created a piquant situation for companies that are scrambling to catch the right staffers at the earliest, and even offering bonuses up to USD 5,000 to entry-level employees!
So desperate have some companies become that to catch in mid-career professionals, they are even bidding against their rivals and sweeten their offers by six-figure dollar salaries.
Surveys have found that the resignation rates are the highest among mid-career employees, aged 30-45 years whose resignation rates increased 20 percent within a year.
A survey found that an additional 40 percent of workers are likely to leave in the next three to six months, two-thirds of them without another job lined up, as they are disillusioned and unhappy.
Some experts also see a silver lining in this exodus. As the economy booms despite the ongoing pandemic, the reshuffling of workers might be a good thing. Workers are finding the positions they better fit and feel valued in, and employers can learn how to better lead their employees.
This is a new, post-pandemic paradigm in which the old style of dictating terms to workers is ending. To keep staff and recruit freshers, some firms are even offering free tuition for their workers, sign-on bonuses, and higher wages.
