'Resignation wave' continues, despite improving economy
Health care and tech saw the biggest increases and are driving the general upward trend.
A new report finds suggests that there may be a higher-than-usual wave of resignations in 2021, at a time when labor shortages are a concern for employers.
The “resignation wave” that has been seen by analysts has many causes, but the report from Visier noted that in recent years, employers have consistently seen spikes in resignations between June and September.
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“Even during the height of the pandemic in 2020, employees continued to shift job roles during the same periods,” a statement from Visier noted. “Current 2021 data shows the resignation trend is rising earlier than previous years, indicating there has been a build-up of overdue resignations, signaling a higher-than-average year for resignations across all industries.”
Resignations higher from mid-career workers and women
The report said that all age groups saw an increase in resignations between August 2019 and August 2020, except for those ages 20-25, who saw a 20.3% decrease. Employees ages 30-35 (21.5%), 35-40 (19.6%) and 40-45 (25.1%) saw large increases in resignations, suggesting that workers who are established in their careers are continuing to shift jobs. Managers have also seen an increase in resignations—as of December 2020, the resignation rate for managers was close to 12% higher than it was in 2019.
The report added that gender differences may be playing a role in these trends. “We see an increase in female resignation rates year over year for the past three years,” the report said. “It’s likely that the majority of recent female resignations is due to the staggering amount of women who left the workforce as the pandemic took form. The cancellation of school and daycare services forced parents (especially women) to become full-time, at-home caretakers.”
In comparison, male resignations decreased in 2020 after two years of increasing resignations. The analysts said male worker resignations may increase this summer if pre-pandemic patterns resume.
Health care and high-tech see the most resignations
Resignations are not increasing in all industries, the report noted. For example, the fields of both finance and manufacturing saw no increase during the time period studied. Health care and are tech saw the biggest increases and are driving the general upward trend.
In the technology field, resignations have increased 4.5% between March 2020 and March 2021, the data showed. Resignations were nearly as high in the health care industry, increasing by 3.61%.
“After 14 months of incredible strain on the industry, burnout may be a factor in increased [health care] resignations,” the report said. “Second, health care employees who may have been considering resignations in prior quarters could have delayed the move due to the pandemic. This theory suggests that there is a pent-up demand for increased job movement in health care.”
The report concluded by saying that the trends in resignation and job turnover may continue, regardless of other factors.
“Organizations need to take a hard look at their retention strategies coming out of last year,” said Ian Cook, VP of People Analytics at Visier. “Employers may have an unfounded belief that the pandemic caused employees to reconsider leaving their jobs due to market uncertainty, which is clearly not the case. If employees were comfortable exiting during the height of the pandemic, this year could prove to be a year of unprecedented change.”
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