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Workers are choosing to leave their jobs at the fastest rate since the internet boom 17 years ago and getting rewarded for it with bigger paychecks and/or more satisfying work.
Labor Department data show that 3.4 million Americans quit their jobs in April, near a 2001 peak and twice the 1.7 million who were laid off from jobs in April.
Job-hopping is happening across industries including retail, food service and construction, a sign of broad-based labor-market dynamism.
Workers have been made more confident by a strong economy and historically low unemployment, at 3.8% in May, the lowest since 2000. Ms. Enoch started getting interview opportunities the same day she began sending out applications online.
The trend could stoke broader wage growth and improve worker productivity, which have been sluggish in the past decade. Workers tend to get their biggest wage increases when they move from one job to another. Job-switchers saw roughly 30% larger annual pay increases in May than those who stayed put over the past 12 months, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
[...] The resurgence of job-hopping is particularly helpful for younger workers looking for footholds to launch their careers, said Erika McEntarfer, an economist at the Census Bureau. About 6.5% of workers under age 35 changed jobs in the first quarter of last year, versus 3.1% of those ages 35 to 54, according to census data.
"The people who are changing jobs, they skew young and they skew being placed in what you might call bad jobs, where the average pay is quite low relative to other jobs in the economy," Ms. McEntarfer said. Job-hopping could lead them into higher-paying industries, she said.
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-this-economy-quitters-are-winning-1530702001
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @10:29AM (11 children)
Not only are the wages going up for the "job hoppers", but those who replace them may also see a salary increase when filling the hopper's position. The one think that is sure is that training expenditures will go up, as will spending on acquiring new personnel.
So what does it all mean? Some of these costs will be passed on to consumers (either directly or as costs in the supply chain go up).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Friday July 06 2018, @02:38PM (10 children)
Companies would rather train and pay someone else more than you currently make, then give you a raise. Even if you really deserve it and are at the low end of the industry/local pay grade.
Reason is they feel most people will simply sit on their current wage rather than rock the boat by making a risky job move. In the long run the company figures they will save more money on people that are content with their job, than lose on people that want to leave.
I have no idea if this is accurate, but this is often corporate HR mindset.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 06 2018, @04:50PM (9 children)
Given how difficult it is to find truly good help, you'll never catch me taking that approach. If they're worth hiring, they won't take long to train if you need them to have new skills. If they take a long time to learn anything new, they weren't worth hiring in the first place because things change and you have to plan on changing with them. Ditto pay and raises. Pay them well for the area/position and make sure they get a raise every year that at the very least covers inflation (preferably more because they've acquired valuable experience in the position during the past year).
I find a good rule of thumb is if you keep an employee less than three years, you weren't paying them enough and if you keep them more than seven you were paying too much. That's in general. There are circumstances where you do not want to let a good employee get away from you ever if you can help it and there are circumstances where keeping someone beyond a year doesn't make sense.
I know my haters are going to be surprised by this attitude but that's only because they know fuck all about running a business. Knowing the value of what you have is a key component of being good at capitalism, be it your own value as an employee or the value of your employees.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @05:46PM
*crickets*
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 06 2018, @06:23PM (1 child)
My situation does not fit the job hopping model. At the annual Holiday (eg, "Christmas") party they fly us from all over the US and Canada to a single location. Last December I was recognized for 35 years service. I came as part of an acquisition a dozen years ago. Even before acquisition, at the small business I was part of, my bosses liked me for years and I had a fairly senior position, a lot of trust, and the open ear of the owner. I started when I was wet behind the ears, just out of school. I didn't have any plan to stay forever, but it just worked out that way. I liked the people I worked with. I liked the product and the long term stability prospect of the business. And boy was it ever stable. I liked the tech I worked with, and believe me in several decades it has changed completely several times. Each time I had a huge hand in the planing and implementation. The most recent after the acquisition.
I've had insultant jobs come my way, that I didn't go looking for, and I'm not on social media or job hunting sites.
I could change jobs. But why would I want to? It seems -- to me -- in my situation, that I would only change jobs if something were to go very badly wrong.
There is no longer any "small business owner". But I have the ear and respect of managers several levels up to and including an EVP.
The only constant is change.
I'm happy and easy to please. My only major goals are to learn new tech always and to get modded funny.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 06 2018, @06:32PM
I will add something that I left out. I got out of school. Didn't have a job. Worked a crap summer job for a bit. Went to regular church on Wednesday evening. Big storm. Few people attending. Had a small circle prayer meeting. Someone prayed for me to get my real job. Within the week I had the job I have never left. The manager of the crap summer job, who I was in favor with, had no problem with the fact that I suddenly had a professional job and had to leave suddenly.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @09:03PM (5 children)
Buzzard may be interested to know that what he is describing is part of Marx's Theory of Surplus Value. [google.com]
"They won't pay me what I'm worth" is something you will hear repeatedly from people who are employees (non-owners being exploited by Capitalists).
A Capitalist CAN'T pay you what you're worth.
If he did, Capitalism would stop working.
In order for him to pay you $7.25/hr, you have to produce more than $7.25/hr worth of goods|services.
The Capitalist's existence depends on his being able to keep the surplus (and the greater the surplus, the richer the already-rich guy gets).
Now, if you remove from the picture any non-workers (e.g. absentee stockholders; unnecessary layers of management; hired-in boards of directors) and make sure that ONLY The Workers are owners of the operation and ONLY The Workers receive a portion of the profits, then there's more money available for The Workers.
That's called a worker-owned cooperative.
It's also called Socialism.
It's an ownership model that stands in contrast to Capitalism.
Oh, and with The Workers being the owners and making the decisions about how the operation is run, there's no bullshit trickling down[1] from a class of managers|a class idle absentee owners.
[1] The only kind of stuff that ever trickles down.
We covered a portion of this in a previous story.
Swedish Worker Cooperative Software Development Company Has No Boss [soylentnews.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @10:12PM (3 children)
There are many worker owned companies under capitalism. Why aren't there more?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @10:56PM (2 children)
Here's your chance to name ONE such company which has owners who are ONLY The Workers.
(One that does -not- have absentee stockholders who are -not- part of the production process and who -won't- send all the jobs to another country if it will increase profits.)
N.B. A company such as that is Socialist.
It is NOT an ESOP such as Publix Markets or Dunn-Edwards Paints.
Your understanding of "Capitalism" is extremely weak.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 07 2018, @03:04AM (1 child)
Many law or medical practices are like that. Car shops, small businesses, too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 07 2018, @04:08AM
ALL of The Workers at those place are NOT owners of the business.
...and certainly NOT -equal- owners (NOT 1 person==1 vote).
N.B. I already mentioned ESOPs, where the actual owners (non-worker majority shareholders) can sell the company to an entity in another city or another state or another country who then choses to replace all of The Workers.
Capitalism sucks.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 07 2018, @06:50AM
Beg to differ. Physically making a thing is not remotely all that goes into said thing's cost or value. You simply have massive envy issues and no clue about business.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @10:44AM (2 children)
Ever felt like you were reading propaganda?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @11:07AM
Exactly what this is.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 06 2018, @05:57PM
Ever felt like you were reading propaganda?
Growth is slowing. [bbc.com]
Costs and inflation are rising. [reuters.com]
Trump's really turning that Obama economy around!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @12:27PM (27 children)
Unskilled shit work.[*]
Young people who wasted money on an education have gone out into the world and found there aren't any jobs.
There aren't any higher-paying industries as treasonous employers outsourced every job to cheap brown labor.
[* Cue all the Soystain boomer motherfuckers screaming, "Construction is skilled shit work!" ]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 06 2018, @12:40PM (15 children)
Well, DUHHH! I hopped from job to job in my thirties and forties. It was easy. I took whatever training and experience, and put in a resume and/or bullshitted with someone in a hiring position, and in effect got a raise just for having the audacity to ask for one. That often meant traveling, living in a motel room, or out of a camper, or long commutes. And, I chased that money fairly hard, because I had bills to pay.
Today? I don't have the energy for that crap. My bills are paid, the kids are grown up and moved away. It would take a very sizeable increase in income to make me move. More, the wife will resist making any moves - she was born on this property, and I guess she plans on dying on it. Guys might have roots, but women grow huge assed taproots, deep into the community.
Of course young people can pick up and move on a whim. Not so much us older people.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @12:45PM (2 children)
So basically you're a lowlife hustler asshole, your one and only skill is bullshit, your wife only married you after you raped her.
Good to know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @01:57PM
Here, your chamomile tea is ready.
Sip slowly, it's hot. Have a cookie too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @05:48PM
Damn, that is a fucked up reply to a rather bland post.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 06 2018, @02:10PM (9 children)
I think it's all luck and timing. My first real job out of grad school ran for 12 years, my next 6 jobs averaged about 2 years each. By some measures, I'm in year 5 on this one now... I only left 2 of those by choice, the rest were a function of a crappy economy either shutting the whole place down, or jerking people around in ways I wouldn't put up with (relocation to a shitty climate, for one.)
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 06 2018, @05:02PM (8 children)
Luck requires randomness and there is very little of that in the world, ask any crypto guy. That doesn't mean there aren't things outside your control but if you consider their possibility ahead of time you can plan for them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 06 2018, @10:46PM (7 children)
I'm sorry, but going in to job 1, year 1, should I have been planning for the eventual collapse of the place which was not to actually happen for another 11+ years? And, yes, for the last 6 years we did plan and prepare as we could for the coming collapse, but how extensive should such planning be? Uproot and relocate on the chance that something bad might happen?
The thing that tanked job 1 was 9-11, it caused a global shift in investment away from medical devices - and it took over 2 years for that particular train wreck to finally grind to a halt. During those two years I was doing an extensive job search to be ready for the day the backsplatter started coming up from the fan, but, you know what? When the economy is in TILT mode, good job offers aren't all that plentiful - I still had a good deal going for the next 2 years, and when it really did end, I spent 4 months confirming, full-time, what my half-assed job search told me: there ain't shit out there unless you move cross-country.
Same thing happened in mini-scale on job 4, the writing was on the wall, the feelers were out, the planning was in full planning mode for almost a year, but the day Mr. can't raise enough funds to tear a wet paper bag came into my office to give me "the news" that he had utterly, completely, and desperately struck out this time, phrased as: "you're being let go," it came back around to the same old story of: yeah, you thought the job market around here looked crappy while you had a job, now that you get to pursue employment full-time you can rack up a whole lot of first-hand stories about just how crappy it is (interviewed with a guy who needed my skills, but he, highest paid software guy in the place, wasn't making 1/2 of my previous salary...)
One solution over the years would appear to be: work for about 1/2 the pay that I've been making since somewhere around year 6... but that seems like a really poor strategy for the long term, since all this painful unemployment really only amounts to less than 3% of potential earning time over the years, and even lower paid people are being laid off at the same time that I am.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 07 2018, @06:55AM (6 children)
Then it was a choice not luck. If you really want a solid demonstration of the difference between the two, get caught counting cards in Vegas. Large men in suits will be happy to explain the difference to you in a dark, secluded area.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 07 2018, @01:29PM (5 children)
Here's the thing, during those 6 years, "the collapse" was imminent at least 4 times, and when "the collapse" really did hit, that was just another chance event - any one of a dozen potential sources of (low odds) funding could have come through in time to prevent it for another 2 or more years. So, play the odds: keep riding the good job instead of making a painful lateral to one that might, or might not, be more secure.
The second time I moved town for a job (only 100 miles that time), I ended up in a real shithole of a job - but it only lasted 6 months because an unbelievable work 95% from home opportunity landed in my lap 6 months later. Planning: move to a bigger town where the job market sucks less and take a good looking job with what appears to be a stable-ish company who needs you. Reality: stable-ish company is run by a Mercurial tyrant with a Napoleon complex and an offer for better pay, better benefits and infinitely better working conditions falls from the sky 6 months later with no location requirements attached. Plan for that? Sure.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 07 2018, @07:54PM (4 children)
Yeah, I woulda told you that if you'd asked. You'll pretty much always get treated better and shown a lot more loyalty at a SMB. If you want to be miserable but make more money that you then have to spend on cost of living differences, by all means move to a major urban center and work for a large corporation. If you want the same standard of living minus a few of the city frills and a much more pleasant work environment, hit one of the non-major urban centers and sign on with a small or medium sized business.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 07 2018, @09:20PM (3 children)
My experience/advice is to stay away from college / University dominated towns, too many asshole "business-children" there who think they can just pay shit to students and get great workers. Yeah, it happens, but not nearly often enough to base a business on. Still, they muddle through with a staff of many incompetent children and blunder around repeating rookie mistakes, missing opportunities and barely scraping by or worse, when they could hire fewer people with actual experience and do better for less cost.
Small/Medium businesses have been a mixed bag for me, the first one was a great ride - compensation was always competitive with my contemporaries working for larger firms, and much more of a total business operations experience than being in a "not my job" silo farm, it was like a 12 year MBA program. Others have had a lot of insecurity in their leadership, childish personalities to deal with in positions of power, etc.
As for cost-of-living, I also find that to be a mixed bag - Miami was high, Houston was low-ish, but there are many smaller towns with costs as high or higher than the larger nearby more metro areas. Along with the sometimes lower cost of living in the smaller towns also comes a very real lower level of services, particularly in the schools, but really all around from police to medical to fixing the damn potholes in the road. Again, varies by location.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 08 2018, @03:10AM (2 children)
In the schools? Man, have you ever gone to public school in a major urban area? I have and it's complete shit compared to the more personal style of education you get in smaller towns. Mind you, some of the teachers in smaller towns aren't exactly the sharpest bowling ball in the shed but most of them are quite passable.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 08 2018, @03:28AM
The public schools in the "good" counties that are suburbs of Washington DC are some of the tops in the nation.
True, they're not in the city itself, but they are next to it. Good luck getting that level of academics and extracurriculars in some second tier city.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 08 2018, @01:29PM
I don't think there's a solid size-quality correlation for schools. Houston had a confederation of independent public school districts, some were great, some were complete shit, and it had everything to do with their property tax funding. The small town school district I know the most about in central Florida definitely qualifies as having a whole stable full of non-sharp bowling ball teachers: their high school graduates who wait tables downtown don't know how to pronounce croissant, even after working in a restaurant with them on the menu for months. They also have a real problem with keeping the kids off drugs - there's a rodeo community there and the kids that are into horses do pretty well, but the ones that aren't mostly end up circulating with the drug using crowd because those are the only two choices for social circles there. At one time (before the drug thing was so bad in town) I thought about moving there and teaching math/science in the high school, but life had other plans.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday July 06 2018, @05:05PM (1 child)
Yep, that's why when our group is hiring I always vote against young candidates. It takes me time to train a new one and I want a better return on my investment.
Sorry, youngsters, you got to prove you are loyal first.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday July 06 2018, @06:35PM
I think the youngsters have learned that the loyalty thing goes both ways. I never had a problem with that in my case, but I can understand it.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 06 2018, @04:55PM (7 children)
Most construction jobs aren't all that skilled. You can pick up what you need in a week for most of them. That said, go roof a house on a 110F day and see if you don't think you need paid well for it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @05:19PM (6 children)
Roofers work very early in the morning before it gets that hot out.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday July 06 2018, @05:48PM (3 children)
Says someone who had never lived in a humid climate where nighttime temps don't get below 70-75. Get up at 6am and start roofing at 100% humidity when it's "only" 75 degrees out. Yeah, it's better than the midday sun at 100 degrees, but still after 15 minutes you'll be longing for a shower.
And no, roofers in those climates often work most of the day anyway. Most residents don't want people banging on their roof at 6am, and neighbors don't want to hear it either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @05:59PM
Yeah, I lived in Florida. That's why I moved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @09:28PM
A helpful chart for those who have always lived somewhere where the air is dry.
Heat index [wikipedia.org]
My first hot day in SoCal (where you don't have to wring out the air before trying to breath it), [noaa.gov] I had this odd sensation which I had never before experienced.
My forearm was tingly.
The sweat was evaporating as quickly as I was producing it.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 07 2018, @01:24AM
I'm just imagining how awful it would be today if there was also moisture in the air.
My thermometer read 108 for several hours.
Now that it's in a direct line with sunlight, it's reading 110.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 06 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)
They work very early starting at 8 AM so as not to disturb the neighbors. Assuming you live on a city block with neighbors. I remember having my house re-roofed some years back.
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 07 2018, @07:00AM
I wish. I worked a summer as a roofer and we worked sun up to sun down except for an hour's lunch. Roofing is not a union job and if you have rain on the way it's your entire ass if you don't get finished before it gets there.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @05:09PM (2 children)
Do you mean eschew?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 06 2018, @06:37PM (1 child)
Do you mean chew?
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @10:42PM
eschewed; eschewing; eschews
transitive verb
: to avoid habitually especially on moral or practical grounds
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 06 2018, @12:32PM (7 children)
Who knew? If the pay is lousy and the work sucks, people are more likely to quit. It's almost like people prefer stocking shelves at $12/hr or doing skilled trades for $25/hr over cleaning toilets for $6.50/hr. I mean, what did the bosses expect, for these employees to be saying "Yes, Mr Capitalist sir, I'll do whatever you say without ever questioning it"?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @12:40PM (4 children)
Nobody wants to be a working class plumber for $25 per hour. You should learn to code and change the world! The pay is astronomical!! Why, can you believe an elite rockstar professional coder can earn up to $0 per hour!!!!! Learn to code today!!!!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @12:45PM (3 children)
That $0 per hour is our insanely high rate of pay meant to attract cisgender women to programming jobs! Which is why we have so many cisgender women going into programming instead of nursing, where they'll make a paltry $150,000 per year. And it's all the fault of incels like you that offering $0/hr isn't getting us any cisfemale programmers!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @12:50PM (2 children)
Ooo yeah, $150,000 to touch swollen testicles for a living. I'm all wet just thinking about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @02:54PM (1 child)
The prospect doesn't exactly get me wet either, jackass. And it sounds like in your world, womyn-born-womyn, by virtue of being superior beings, require no medical care, and their reproductive systems never develop equally nausea-inducing diseases.
Way to miss the point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2018, @03:12PM
Replying to myself, because I see I also miss your point.
Your point is that you're projecting your own feelings of attraction towards women and repulsion from men on to me and mistaking that sexual orientation (described in terms not dependent on the gender of person experiencing the sexual orientation) as being a universal experience. You are completely shameless in using the attendant patriarchal chauvinism as a cheap rhetorical trick.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday July 06 2018, @06:00PM (1 child)
Yeah, I don't see the big deal here either, particularly when it's focused on what TFA actually calls "bad jobs."
In a worse economy with high unemployment, many people may be stuck in such "bad jobs." In a better climate, they go interview for openings and trade up! Who knew?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday July 07 2018, @05:27PM
And this, in turn, leaves the "bad job" open for someone who maybe hasn't had work for the better part of a decade to start getting a paycheck again. Which is also a good thing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.