40 Percent of US Workers Weighing up Quitting Their Jobs: Report

Hiring sign is displayed outside of a retail store in Vernon Hills, Ill., on Nov. 13, 2021. U.S. employers advertised fewer jobs in May 2022 as the economy has shown signs of weakening, though the overall demand for workers remained strong. Employers advertised 11.3 million jobs at the end of May, the Labor Department said Wednesday, July 6, 2022, down from nearly 11.7 million in March, the highest level on records that date back more than 20 years. AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File

Roughly 40 percent of workers in the United States are contemplating quitting their current jobs in the next three to six months, according to a new report from the global management consulting firm, McKinsey and Co.

The firm surveyed more than 13,000 people across the globe, including 6,294 Americans, between February and April, to find out what is driving people to stay, leave, or return to their jobs.

The survey found that workers might leave their current jobs in order to find better-paying work that is more satisfying, with the majority—three-quarters of employed respondents—stating that they believe they can find such jobs elsewhere.

Workers in the United States aren’t the only ones contemplating leaving their current place of employment. The survey also found that 66 percent of respondents in India, for example, were thinking of quitting their jobs, while 49 percent of respondents in Singapore said they were too.

Another 41 percent of Australians and 38 percent of Canadians surveyed are also considering leaving their current employer.

Meanwhile, around 48 percent of people in the survey said they’ve already quit their jobs and have pursued new opportunities in different industries, the report found.

Another 65 percent said they are not returning to the industries that they left.

“What we are seeing is a fundamental mismatch between companies’ demand for talent and the number of workers willing to supply it,” the report stated.

Employees Reevaluating

Also stated in the report: “Employers continue to rely on traditional levers to attract and retain people, including compensation, titles, and advancement opportunities. Those factors are important, particularly for a large reservoir of workers we call ’traditionalists.' However, the COVID-19 pandemic has led more and more people to reevaluate what they want from a job—and from life—which is creating a large pool of active and potential workers who are shunning the traditionalist path.”

According to McKinsey and Co, this has resulted in a structural gap in the labor supply because there aren’t enough traditional employees to fill all the openings.

Nearly 48 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data, and quitting levels remained high through the first half of 2022.

The report comes as there were 11.3 million open jobs at the end of May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a marked increase from the 9.3 million open jobs in April 2021.

Meanwhile, the number of hires remained “little changed,” at 6.5 million, and the hires rate was ”unchanged,” at 4.3 percent, according to the BLS report.

Experts are monitoring the labor market for signs of cooling because it could bring down inflation, which currently stands at 9.1 percent.

A separate survey from the job posting website Joblist published earlier this month asked more than 15,000 job seekers from across the country whether they regret walking away from their previous jobs.

It found that 60 percent of respondents said they now felt more urgency to find a new job before a recession hits, while 26 percent of respondents who quit their previous jobs said they regretted doing so.

According to a Bloomberg survey of 34 economists in July, the U.S. economy is highly likely to fall into a recession within the next 12 months.