Is ‘Quiet Quitting’ a Sign of Workers Slacking Off or Pushing Back?

The pandemic upended the world of work, and produced a string of new buzzwords along the way, including WFH (work from home), RTO (return to office), the Great Resignation and, more recently, “quiet quitting.” The terms all reflect shifts in the balance of power between employers and employees, as a record-breaking spike in unemployment in 2020 was followed by an unusually tight labor market a year later. Now predictions of an economic slowdown are raising questions about whether “quiet quitting” can survive a widely predicted rise in job insecurity -- if it ever existed at all.

It doesn’t mean a fed-up worker who walks out the door (or clicks “leave” on one final Zoom call) without a word, though of course that happens. It’s about worker engagement -- about people deciding to just do their jobs without going above and beyond or working well past official close of business. The number of finance workers, for example, who say they’re “very likely” or “extremely likely” to try their hardest to do a good job has waned since 2021, a survey released in October found. Other surveys found increases in the number of workers who said they felt less connected to their organization’s mission, had less clarity about what was expected of them and saw fewer opportunities to learn and grow. In mid-2022, according to Gallup, about half of US workers could be described as “quiet quitters.”