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Do Americans still want to work? The question has fascinated newspapers and divided labor market experts since a phenomenal increase in resignations was recorded during the pandemic. We now speak of “the great resignation”.
The expression appeared last spring in the media. Its author, psychologist Anthony Klotz, specialist in the world of work, explains that the Covid pushes employees to review their priorities and that they decide more frequently to give up their job to refocus on what is dear to them, very often their family, which they have to take care of because of the pandemic.
The figures confirm it: since the first confinements, 48 million Americans have resigned. A huge majority did so simply to take another job. Better paid, in more pleasant conditions. This is the optimistic reading made by President Joe Biden, he finds this great resignation rather gratifying.
Is this vision shared by the first concerned?
The most vocal are speaking out on social media. Especially on TikTok where the hashtag #Iquitmyjob (“I quit my job”) was a smash hit. With tens of millions of views for posts proudly announcing a resignation on the mode of the arm of honor. On the Reddit network, another watchword is all the rage: anti-work, or anti-work. The members of this forum assume: they no longer want to work, they no longer want these bullshit job, and they claim the right to laziness, they call themselves lazy.
More confidential than hashtag #Iquitmyjob, this anti-work movement has gained momentum during Covid-19 and is beginning to be taken into account by forecasters. At Goldman Sachs, this trend is seen as a long-term threat to the job market and therefore to the US economy.
According to an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, this “great resignation” began long before Covid-19
The labor market participation rate peaked in 2000 at 67%, notes Nicholas Eberstadt, and since then it has continued to decline. If it were today at the level of 20 years ago, all the jobs would be filled. The retirements of baby boomers are not enough to explain this erosion.
For this neoconservative, this movement is favored by alternative income. He explained it in a book published in 2016, titled unemployed men. This phenomenon, initially male, is becoming more feminized despite the fact that women are having fewer and fewer children. All these explanations, whether optimistic or alarmist, start from a common postulate: the “great resignation” would be voluntary.
Employees, for various reasons, would have regained power over employers
The analysis of the massive departures observed in 2021 tells a less rosy story. First, it is mainly because of the Covid-19 that the Americans have abandoned their work. For fear of the coronavirus or because of the vaccination obligation. And also because of the random closings of schools: mothers have massively defected.
In the fall of 2021, they were 1.4 million fewer on the job market compared to 2019. In addition, resignations concern first and foremost the lowest paid jobs. In the hotel industry or personal services. In these activities, the increase in wages is desired.
If employees leave these jobs, it is primarily because they are poorly paid and they do not allow them to live decently. The majority then opt for a better-paid job, but since the wage catch-up is not as rapid as inflation, they remain workers in great precariousness.
► IN BRIEF
The IMF approves aid of 455 million dollars for Congo-Brazzaville. With an immediate first disbursement of $90 million. This announcement confirms the return of the International Monetary Fund to Brazzaville. Since 2019, its support had been suspended because of the dispute over the debt, the IMF deemed that the Congolese debt was unsustainable and that it should be renegotiated. With the erasure granted by the G20, its trajectory seems more realistic. It represents 94% of GDP.