OT: The Great Resignation

My wife lost her $85k/year job in March of 2020 due to the pandemic. It was a 30-mile commute and she was expected to be there 9am-7pm. She liked the job, but it left her with very little quality home life(we have two kids).

After she was let go, she started taking freelance/contract work from home and made $125k last year, working less than 100 days. She will probably never look for full-time work again and I don't blame her. Life's too short to be working underpaid 10 hour days and always wondering when you may get let go because your company's profit margin isn't high enough for their overpaid CEO/CFO's liking.

Seems to me people have more options now than they ever realized and are taking advantage of it, and at the expense of bigger corporations. Can't say I feel bad for them, honestly.

This story involves the industry I've worked in for 40 years.

"Jobfished: the con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency"

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60387324

I did it last November to get a salary bump, figured I am not sure when I would have such a good market to make a move. Been through enough terrible ones where you were just worried about keeping your job. 

@Don, from what I see, ageism is pretty flagrant.  I think we've seen it in the NFL recently with the trend of hiring 30-something coaches.  I don't think a red light goes off in the average person's head when they say or hear something like "we're looking to hire someone young" in the way that it would if they said or heard "we're looking to hire someone of race X." 

I work in SEO and decided to look around after the first of the year, and found a new job within a week. The main gripe I had with the previous company I worked for is that management communication was all over the place and there was really the no clear-cut direction they wanted to go. There were money problems and I found so much wasted spending across their eCommerce sites but they didn't care as it took too much effort to fix. I was hired to do SEO but ended up doing everything on the web dev side along with marketing. I also didn't consider the field the company was in as something sustainable and knew one day the company could go under due to federal regulations.

My work is now much more focused on a single area (SEO) and communication with management is so much better. It also helps that I took a 50% pay increase, health insurance is better and half the cost and the employer offers retirement matching which my previous employer didn't.

I've been on both sides of this recently. I've had multiple big offers but ended up staying at my company with a promotion. I just hired someone this week and really had to battle my boss to be able to offer enough to make it work. 

Overall, it's great and long overdue. Employees should have the power and now they finally do.

I'm leaving my in office role for a remote one at the end of the month. Still same company, so really just shifting the open position.

The department I was just hired in to was trying to fill 10 openings at the beginning of the year. Some of those from expansion and some from others hopping to other positions. This is by far the most movement I've seen in the 15 years I've been in the workforce.

BTW OP - great topic.  Can you imagine just how fun discussing something like this would be if we had one of the fancy-schmancy "reply" buttons where we could make a comment DIRECTLY AT ANOTHER SPECIFIC PERSON and not just randomly howl our thoughts into the wind?

That would be amazing.  

@Champeen, 

  I am in a similar boat. 15 years with this group. Love the people. Unfortunately, it has shrunk to minimum size and has continued the "lack of communication". I was/am happy with the compensation hence never tried to find out what's out there. I also recently found out that my cohort is paid a lot more outside than in this company. 

I am looking. Let's see how it turns out. Good luck with your journey.  

@WindyCityBlue

Need a CRNA as a rep? 

"if we had one of the fancy-schmancy "reply" buttons where we could make a comment DIRECTLY AT ANOTHER SPECIFIC PERSON"

You're making unrealistic demands. What are you going to ask for next—that we can post new topics to the board and be able to edit what we've written?

I am in charge of special education at a school district. Not only can we not find teachers and service providers. We also can't get people through the non public agencies we usually use to fill temporary vacancies. We also can't find substitute teachers. Its a mess. It has sort of become a downward spiral. I think a lot of educators who could afford not to work, chose not to return during the mess of school re-openings and haphazard independent study programs (CA passed a law that we had to offer Independent Study). Then a job that is already really hard and underpaid, became harder with staffing shortages and so the staffing shortages got worse and so on and so forth. 

My wife is an office manager for commercial real estate and she can't find people for an entirely different reason. Everyone expects to be able to work from home for office jobs now. In my opinion, the jobs she is hiring for actually could very easily be done from home with reliable well trained employees but her company wants hourly employees to come into an office and with what her company pays those types of positions, "reliable, well trained employees" does not describe most of their applicants. 

If you do decide to switch just make sure to demand that your new job matches the time off you're getting at your current company. Most places want to restart you at their lowest PTO and make you earn accrual over the years. I wouldn't take a new job that didn't give me at least 3 weeks of PTO at this point. 

From an earlier post here:

This leads me to believe we are headed towards some CFO asking:  "If they are working remotely already why not just have India do it for 1/3 the cost?"

If a CFO is just now thinking about this possibility (which has been in play [1] for many years now), s/he is appallingly ignorant and probably not good at his/her job.

[1] Outsourcing I.T.: Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't.

One of our competitors went out of business, so the Sales Engineer contacted us.   We're now posting the requisition so we can hire him before anyone else does.  Talk about lucky! 

I've been overworked in a high pressure executive level finance job for about two years now.  Mid-40s.  I would gladly take a pay cut of up to 20% for a job with less pressure.  I'm really hoping to be a #2 guy in an organization, as I am really more of a technical guy and I don't do well on the holistic organizational stuff.  

My problem is that a lot of these job descriptions that are out there these days are murder.  It's like just about any company will pay like $40,000 to you to answer the phone, but if you want an actual living wage they seem to expect you to do the work of ten men.  

@CaliUMfan what is the daily rate sub teachers receive?  where I'm at it comes out to 13/hour which is why the school system can't find subs

My wife taught for 25 years and when the schools opened back up to such a shit show she packed it in.  Made my life way better I don't do shit in the kitchen unless it's to eat something or stare into the fridge.

There has been ever-reducing loyalty shown to employees over several decades and workers are simply returning the favor now that they have options. 

This is a great topic.  There are a number of reasons why people are leaving the workforce or switching jobs...

***The pandemic caused many of us to reassess our priorities

***Many people realized they could get by on one income and have a better lifestyle

***One million people have died

***Many people who got temporarlly laid off had time to figure out that their job sucked, their company sucked, their customers sucked, and their pay sucked

***With kids learning from home, some people couldn't afford to hire babysitters and thus had to quit their jobs

***Etc.  

I had a six-figure software developer position open for my small company (<20 employees) and advertised online.  We got around 10 resumes and only 2 of them were qualified.  We hired one of them.  He is our first H1B and our first employee in yet another state.  It is the 8th state in which we have employees.

It's been extraordinarily bad for us. I have numerous open positions I'm trying to fill and I am getting 0 to 3 ish applicants for jobs that have been open for a month. And the applicants are...well...not qualified. I've started posting positions at their max salary only as that's the only way I can garner any interest.

Retention is now a huge issue as well as everyone and their mom is trying to recruit/steal anyone with *any* kind of technical security chops. I've never seen anything like it. Positions that 18 months ago used to pull 120k/yr are now pulling 200k/yr without breaking a sweat.

@Don. Age discrimination is rampant because it is near impossible to prove especially for job candidates.  Job posts offer clues with language like entry level or only a couple years experience required.  Many employers discriminate against the unemployed with language like recent experience required etc.

My best hires always tend to be people over 40 for many reasons including EQ, loyalty, ethos not to mention skill and lack of drama.

Large companies would be well advised to add age diversity to their new hires by recruiting older employees who will also help improve existing workers by what they bring.

@OwenGoBlue - Agree completely. You reap what you sow.

Hiring manager here.  I hired a couple really high quality people last July/August.   I have not personally lost anyone from my team, but I have two people who are exploring promotional opportunities internally since other teams have so many openings.   Some of my peers have lost up to ~25% of their teams (all white collar/salaried positions).    Working with our external vendors who have hourly workers, they are seeing tremendous turnover even despite wage increases and weekly retention bonuses.

@543Church

In regards to the point about outsourcing, companies do consider that and as I've seen in these replies there has been some movement with certain jobs to ad-hoc/task-specific work.  But I've worked in IT for over a decade now and the myth of the great overseas team really needs to die.  Are there good out-sourcing firms?  Absolutely.  But they aren't any more plentiful than local help and they introduce their own issues with regards to rising wages/costs in those countries, inconsistent work product when they have turnover, time delays, etc.  They're fine, but as someone who's had to clean up his fair share of off-shore codebases oftentimes what you get for 1/3 the price is...1/3 (or worse) the quality.  

I had a boss say once that the reason he isn't a fan of outsourcing teams for bigger projects is you want to be within talking/meeting/"yelling" distance of people who are working on it so that when issues come up you can resolve them quickly.  When it's harder to keep those lines of communication open everyone suffers.

@UMproud I believe our subs make around $200 per day which seems to be about the going rate in the Los Angeles area. Minimum wage in LA County is $15 per hour. 

So many bad career decisions being made during this period.  Many of these same people will be on the market again, soon.  We're having a hard time filling spots even through people are leaving their jobs....might say more about us than the talent pool.

I'm in private health care, mostly independent/specialty practitioners who are relatively free of corporate constraints and can make their own schedules. Third party insurance is on the other side of the table and while they've been flexible during the pandemic (allowing telehealth and in some cases reimbursing the same as for in person services), overall compensation has been stagnant forever.

What I see is overwhelming patient demand given the physical and mental health impact of the pandemic and few if any providers with room for new patients. Everyone is full, mostly working remotely, and many are burned out after two years on the front line of a public health emergency.

In my space I see providers phasing out and retiring (early) one after another--if they can afford to do so. It's hell on wheels out there with no end in sight.

The "outsourcing" issues in health care are true--a nurse or respiratory therapist can quit their position to become a traveler and make much more for the same job (or even doing less).

While travelers were necessary for Covid-19, I fully expect hospitals to double down on  "penny wise, pound foolish" and continue to try to be "efficient" by lean hiring... with big issues in staffing down the road, as an ICU RN with 15y experience that the same hospital (worth their weight in gold) becomes a thing of the past...

(edit: the new normal on mgoboard--I mean to reply to the above comment but can't...)

Many reasons, but the one that kills me is the level that young people just want to stay at home and let Mom and Dad pay for everything. More money for I phones and X boxes if you don't have to worry about rent and food. 

Softest generation in history, but sure can type fast...lol

UMProud:

My best hires always tend to be people over 40 for many reasons including EQ, loyalty, ethos not to mention skill and lack of drama.

My wife worked in a UM department for 25 years, but got riffed in 2011. She wasn't interested in getting another job in her field, but wanted to keep working so she started applying for jobs in the UM Medical Center that didn't require medical training—patient/family contact and service kinds of positions where you have to relate to people who are generally very stressed out. She'd be completely awesome at those positions, but at the age of 58 she couldn't even get interviews.

We knew damn well that they were only interested in young 20-somethings, and we also knew what U-M employees familiar with the Medical Center had told us: that it was very common for those 20-somethings to have trouble showing up to work regularly on time, and would frequently bail on the job entirely after just a few months. 

Eventually she landed a job as a teacher at a pre-school, which she loved, so it worked out, but it was three years of job application frustration before she got it.

Bakery Owner

We have about 20 employees, most who average about 8+ years with us.  When Covid first hit, we lost 6 of our aged 65 and over employees and 3 of our other employees b/c they had a family member with compromised health.  We stayed open, barely at times, but we could not find any new employees to help at the bakery.  Fast forward to mid 2021 and we finally started seeing some new applications from both young and old workers.  We use Indeed and probably 2/3 of the apps were not really applicable to our job, but at least we were seeing some interest.  Finally, by Winter of 2021 we were able to become fully staffed again.  Our labor costs have increased by 35% in 18 months but we are very fortunate to be open and have people willing to work for us and buy our product. 

I relocated from Pennsylvania to Royal Oak last summer. I hate it here. I should clarify I did not get laid off. This was a promotion. I just don't really care for it or this area.

Working from home options hit the job market hard. Even my wife made this switch as covid started. Since she left that job in medicine 2 others in that group followed her a year later and they can't fill the holes at the place. When you can make the same or more from home why "go" to work.

@nerv

Ha! Not scabs because nobody is complaining, but I have business to run.  My former head of finance was paid around $160k (not including bonus).  Once he left, candidates wanted >$200k with options/equity and guaranteed bonus (and benefits of course).  I was reluctant, but willing to accept that.  But like all free market economies, services popped-up to offer those back-end capabilities without the full-time commitment and cost.  It's early, but using these services is going well and is saving me a good amount of money.

What I've learned is that my sales channel is more important and hence pay those folks more than I pay myself.

@doughboy

Username checks out!

Speaking as a manager, it's been pretty hard. We've just made offers to two people for open positions. For one, we had exactly two credible candidates. For the other, the person we offered was it. She's got another offer on the table, as well, so if she takes that it's back to square one. Luckily, she's pretty strong, so we're not just offering out of desperation.

Read through the thread and I’m getting the impression it’s the same old whiners wondering why they can’t fill positions for the same old reasons that are stupid obvious but they refuse to learn.

People only ever applied for shit jobs because they had to.

When a bunch of people die and millions more are crippled, the sectors most notorious for paying and treating people like crap will be hit hardest. That goes double when remote working frees workers from regional constraints like commute or local opportunities.

Teachers, for example, are an endangered species. Factory workers are hard to find. Well, these were two jobs where everyone was told “fuck you get back to work” while hundreds of thousands were dying. At that level of brazen contempt, the only likely applicant to show up is an ogre.

Sheesh.

@dragonchild.

I think you are over-thinking the situation.  The people most impacted medically by the pandemic are older folks, especially those with co-morbidities.  The vast majority of the posts here focus on younger folks.  With that, there is no doubt pent up demand that is hard to fill right now.  For those younger folks, now is the time to strike while the iron is hot.  But I'm guessing it will hit an equilibrium in about 8-12 months.

I left my job in MBA career services at an elite University in January. Great team, meaningful work, but salary increases were minimal over 7 years despite shattering records. From that side of candidate work, I can say firms were hiring like crazy this fall, coming back for more candidates even after extending a bunch of offers.

Now I work in executive recruiting, from anywhere. I was ready for a change and my wife was applying to grad programs in the fall, so I wanted to be able to move if we have to without hunting for a job. Conservatively, I expect to earn 25% more this year (highly commission-driven, so variable), but I don't think that's great resignation driven so much as going back to corporate from non-profit. Working with high-growth companies to find senior executives is challenging now, though. Great talent is getting lots of outreach, some of them REALLY don't want to be in-office; I'm working on a search right now where someone who looked good on paper had a first conversation with me and then said "I'm double your price point, and if you want me in the office every day you'd have to double that."

P.S. If any of you are HR Directors/VPs in South Florida and looking to make a move, LMK... I might have the right next stop for you!

Well for technical fields, people have been saying for years "this ageing workforce is going to be a huge problem", the pandemic accelerated that. And there was some vague planning to get younger people into the workforce and have them learn from the old timers, but the clock ran out. 

I think most of this is just reaping what you sow. The job market was so cut throat for the past decade+, thousands of applications going to mid-level jobs, younger people being told they don't have enough experience, people grinding in jobs they don't really like. Slashing benefits, or slashing hours so they didn't have to give you benefits.

Now all of the sudden the same hiring managers are like "hey where is everyone?"

Actual correspondence within the last 24 hours:

Email from senior sales recruiter (after initial phone interview and taking two online assessments for them):

"Dear (Me),

Thank you for your interest in employment with XYZ Group LLC.

We have reviewed your resume and have carefully considered your qualifications, but we have decided to pursue other candidates for this position.

We will keep your application and information on file and if a position opens that matches your qualifications, we will try to contact you. We also encourage you to visit our website and apply for new positions as they become available.

We appreciate your interest in our company and wish you success in your career search.

My reply: "Thank you for letting me know, recruiter."

Best wishes, 

Me

Follow up email from recruiter: "Hi (Me), Sorry, that was an automated email.

You are qualified for multiple positions at XYZ and I am actively shopping your resume to hiring managers when positions come open. Stay tuned, this is not the end of the road."

---shrug emoji---

I would love a new career.  I have done this NP role for 20 years and am burned to a crisp.  
 

Not sure what else I could break in to that would pay enough. 
 

sigh. I feel trapped by golden handcuffs. 
 

first world problems I guess

I’m hiring. Consumer Research out of Chicago and Cincinnati. Everyone I talk to at companies in the industry says it’s an incredibly challenging market, and we have found the same. There just isn’t enough talent out there for the jobs available.

I moved from a Michigan based software company to a large silicon valley one (software dev role, permanent remote, still based in Michigan). 40-50% pay bump, so worth it, though I'm moving from one kind of dysfunction to another. If I loved my last place, I would never have left...probably to my detriment. That kind of pay bump just opened doors and a different level of security.

Crazy competitive. Candidates with just a HS education + software bootcamp with some demonstration of competency can easily land a $100k+ offer.