- Roughly 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in January, extending the Great Resignation into 2022.
- That marked the eighth straight month that quits exceeded 4 million and hovered near record highs.
- "Demand is quite high and that's leading to lots of people getting new jobs," Nick Bunker said.
The Great Resignation isn't showing any signs of stopping in 2022.
Nearly 4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in January, according to Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, data published Wednesday morning. That's down from December's revised sum of 4.4 million quits and marks the lowest monthly total since October.
Still, the reading marks an eighth consecutive month with more than 4 million workers walking out of their jobs. That comes after annual revisions meant June 2021's data was revised up from 3.87 million to over 4 million quits.
That's an extraordinary streak, both for its length and the intensity of nationwide quitting. Monthly quits trended at about 3.5 million before the pandemic rocked the US economy. Walkouts have now landed well above that level for the better part of the last year. Record-high quits were also seen as recently as November, with 4.5 million workers leaving their jobs that month alone.
Quitting has eased somewhat in the last few months. January's decline was the second in a row after November's all-time high and marked the largest one-month decline since May 2021. But just because quits are sliding somewhat doesn't mean they'll look normal again anytime soon.
Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed Hiring Lab, told Insider that the number of Americans quitting is still elevated. He said regarding people leaving for new jobs and employers trying to retain the staff they have that "this is a trend that is no longer sort of accelerating, but it is still very much with us."
"The Great Resignation is still in full swing even if quits are moderating somewhat," Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, wrote on Twitter. "Quits are still up 23 percent above pre-pandemic levels."
"Fundamentally what we're still seeing is a red hot labor market, where demand for workers is extremely high and the Great Resignation is continuing as the labor market remains very tight," Zhao told Insider.
Accommodation and food services businesses continued to account for the most quits, with 781,000 workers walking out in January. Retailers saw 717,000 quits through the month, and professional and business services followed with 697,000 quits.
Walkouts eased the most at retailers through January, with quits in the sector dropping by 69,000 from their December level. Information also saw walkouts decline, though only by 20,000, according to the JOLTS report.
Bunker said quit rates for the accommodation and food services and retail trade sectors "might be leveling off, but if they are leveling off, they're leveling off at pretty high levels."
A new Pew Research Center report highlights some of the reasons people left their jobs in 2021, a record year of Americans quitting. The survey found that a large share of respondents who quit in 2021 did so because of low pay and lack of advancement. People also cited feeling disrespected at work, but not as many said they decided to leave because of vaccine requirements from their employer compared to other survey options.
"The story of quitting is really a story of job switching," Bunker said.
"Demand is quite high and that's leading to lots of people getting new jobs," Bunker added. "And what we can see from some of the wage growth data is that they are getting some pretty sizable wages, at least before inflation, with doing so."
Pay growth did ease in February, with last week's jobs report showing average hourly earnings only climbing by $0.01, or about 0.03%. Still, the same measure shows average pay up 5.1% in the year through February, almost doubling the wage growth seen before the health crisis.
Even though quits were still high at the beginning of 2022, there were also 11.3 million job openings in January 2022 and 6.5 million hires.
Bunker said what we see moving forward in job quits depends on "what happens to labor demand, what happens to job openings."
"Quits and job openings generally move hand in hand," Zhao said. "And as the labor market continues to remain very tight and demand for workers continues to remain very strong, I expect that the Great Resignation is going to stick around as well."
Zhao added "if the job market does slow down, then I do expect that the Great Resignation will start to wane as well."