When the Labor Department released its April sales figures on June 8, the actual number of retail layoffs topped the list of job losers, with a huge percentage increase. Overall, nearly 4 million people quit in April, including 649,000 in retail – the highest number in 20 years. Nearly 650,000 people gave up their retail jobs in April alone, the Washington Post reported.
Americans are losing millions of jobs, and retail leads the way with the largest increase in resignations across all sectors. Retail workers are leaving the industry because vacancies have given them more clout. They have been drained by the pandemic, strengthened by a strengthened labor market, and are leaving jobs like never before.
Despite the scarce availability of talent, some retailers and brands, including Levis, are opting to train their employees to learn other professions to fill highly skilled positions. Some find less stress-free jobs in insurance agencies, marijuana dispensaries, banks and local governments where their customer service skills are rewarded with higher wages and better performance. As workers leave retail and hospitality jobs for lower pay and more challenging customers, a growing number of job openings are facilitating the transition to a new career for some.
Restaurants, retail stores, and transportation companies not only struggle to fill vacancies, they also cling to workers they can. Daniel Zhao, CEO of Job Web site Glassdoor predicts the trend will accelerate in the coming months as workers will stay away from less ideal jobs in search of greener pastures during the pandemic. One reason retail workers are laying off workers is not the industry’s decline due to lower wages.
Millions of Americans have started new businesses, pushing the start-up rate to a 15-year high last year. The sector with the highest employment growth in April was Leisure and hospitality, an area where most jobs require customer service, a month in which a record number of retail workers left work. The data are particularly worrying for retailers because a number of mass merchants announced massive job cuts earlier this year.
In normal times, people who quit in large numbers would signal a healthy economy and plentiful jobs. But the pandemic has led to the worst recession in US history, with millions of people out of work. There is evidence that the large number of workers who quit get better-paying jobs, said Shierholz, and their wage growth has been consistently strong.
In April, 649,000 retail workers left the industry — the largest one-month exodus since the Labor Department began collecting such data more than 20 years ago — reported Abha Bhattarai in an article for The Washington Post last month. Personnel issues are a huge hurdle for employers in retail and hospitality across the country, especially as stores and restaurants began to open in many states, including Michigan, even as social welfare mandates were masked. Some people who do low-wage jobs in restaurants go to get better paid elsewhere.
Dozens of Starbucks employees in the US have told insiders that staffing problems have to do with a shortage of applicants and too many current employees looking for other jobs.
A shift manager at Starbucks in Atlanta told insiders that after two years in the position, she felt like a “golden handcuff” because she relies on the company to provide insurance. Those who leave have benefits that tie them to the job, but they’re looking for something better.
In 2017, the typical wage for a full-time worker was about $33,000 a year, but most jobs were not full-time. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, people gave up stressful, low-paying jobs that were already dangerous and many considered indispensable. Workers went to new jobs with better pay and working conditions that could adapt to distance.
John White quit his job after a competitor ignored a raise and promotion to do something else. The company that hired him at all, a company that is now owned by Microsoft.
White is one of millions of Americans working in the US who have left their jobs in recent months. Nearly 4 million Americans quit their jobs in April according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. This was an unprecedented number in the two decades the government has been tracking the data, which has brought the exodus rate to 24% – the highest since the pandemic.
With 9.8 million people out of work, others are quitting at record rates, pushing exit rates to unprecedented levels. Workers go to new jobs with better pay and more remote, friendly working conditions. The power of the workers, it is thought, is that if they are not satisfied with their work, they will find a better one elsewhere.
Nevertheless, it will take more than post-pandemic labour market fluctuations to give meaningful power to retail workers. A high number of workers are leaving the economy: a total of 4 million people made redundancies in April, or 27 percent of all workers. Some retail merchants leave their jobs for roles with better conditions – for example jobs in construction or warehouses where they do not have to deal with difficult customers.
In recent weeks, I have spoken to CEOs and managers of leading construction sites and recruitment platforms representing a cross-section of white, blue and gray workers. The leadership of monsters like Snagajob, Adzuna, HireVue, HiredTual and LinkedIn told me that there is still a huge demand for workers in these companies, but it is difficult for them to find people for their jobs. Meanwhile, people worried about the virus are withdrawing from the labor market.
Some workers leave their jobs because they are afraid to return to insecure jobs. Others work in jobs that don’t fit well, waiting for the pandemic to stop. More than 750,000 people left work in April in the leisure and hospitality industry, which includes employment in hotels, bars, restaurants, theme parks and other entertainment facilities.
