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Fnord666 writes:

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

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