Low pay, a lack of opportunities for advancement and feeling disrespected at work were the top reasons Americans quit their jobs last year during what has been dubbed the Great Resignation, according to the results of a Pew Research Center survey released last week. Further, survey results indicate that respondents who quit their jobs and found employment elsewhere are happier and less likely to complain of wages, opportunities for advancement, work-life balance and flexibility.
According to Pew, the nation’s “quit rate” reached a 20-year high in November. Moreover, a recent Elsevier health report shows that 75% of healthcare workers are considering leaving the profession by 2024.
Workers who quit a job in 2021 cited low pay (63%), no opportunities for advancement (63%) and feeling disrespected at work (57%) as reasons that they quit their jobs, according to results of the Feb. 7-13 Pew Research Center survey. Child care issues also played a role for many (48%) in their decision to leave.
Thirty-nine percent of the respondents said they quit their jobs because they were working too many hours, whereas 30% said they quit because they were working too few hours. Less than a fifth (18%) cited their employer requiring a COVID-19 vaccine as a reason for leaving a job.
The coronavirus itself seemed to play a relatively minor role in workers leaving for greener pastures. When asked whether their reasons for quitting a job were related to the coronavirus outbreak, 31% say they were. Those without a four-year college degree (34%) were more likely than those with a bachelor’s degree or more education (21%) to say the pandemic played a role in their decision.
The breakdown for Americans who quit jobs in 2021 fell somewhat along ethnic lines. According to Pew: “Non-white adults who quit a job last year are more likely than their white counterparts to say the reasons include not having enough flexibility (52% versus 38%), wanting to relocate to a different area (41% versus 30%), working too few hours (37% versus 24%) or their employer requiring that they have a COVID-19 vaccine (27% versus 10%). The non-white category includes those who identify as Black, Asian, Hispanic, some other race or multiple races.”
Admittedly, the research center said, the non-white demographic could not be analyzed according to ethnic groups due to sample size limitations.
Workers younger than 30 and those with lower incomes were more likely to quit a job in 2021. Thirty-seven percent of young adults surveyed said they quit their job, compared with 17% of those aged 30 to 49, 9% of those aged 50 to 64, and 5% of those aged 65 or more years. Approximately a fourth of adults with lower incomes (24%) said they quit a job last year, compared with 18% of middle-income adults and 11% of those with upper incomes.
The survey received 9,388 responses out of a sample of 10,467, for a response rate of 90%. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 9,388 respondents is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points, according to Pew.
