‘Great Resignation’ Wasn’t That Great, Historically Speaking
A data series discontinued in 1981 shows that manufacturing workers, at least, quit at much higher rates in the 1970s, 1960s, 1940s and 1920s.
Manufacturing workers had higher quit rates in several earlier decades.
Photographer: FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images
The rate at which US workers are quitting their jobs, which has become a much-watched economic indicator during the current economic expansion, fell in January and is now well below the peaks that sparked talk of a “Great Resignation” in 2021 and 2022. But at 2.5 quits per 100 jobs, it’s still higher than at any point before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Then again, these numbers go back only to December 2000, which is when the US Bureau of Labor Statistics launched its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. That was at the tail end of the long 1990s boom, with the unemployment rate beginning to rise in January 2001 and a recession starting that April, and the quits rate in early 2001 was only slightly below where it is now. Quits are seen as a measure of labor-market strength — people don’t leave jobs voluntarily unless they think they can find new ones — and the past two decades weren’t exactly known for strong labor markets. Maybe it’s the sub-2% quit rates of the 2000s and 2010s that were anomalous, not the 2.5% we’re seeing now.