The Great Resignation: 4.5 Million Americans Quit Job in November

How to quit your job in 2022

Americans quit jobs at a record pace in November as job openings hovered close to their all-time highs in a sign that workers continued to hold most of the leverage before the omicron variant sent COVID-19 cases soaring.

The number of workers quitting jobs vaulted to 4.6 million from 4.2 million, above the prior record of 4.4 million reached in September, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That means 3% of workers voluntarily left their positions, matching September’s record high.

Employers posted 10.6 million job openings, down from a near-record 11 million the previous month and just below July’s all-time high, Labor said in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Openings have topped 10 million for six straight months. 

The decline was fueled by a drop of 261,000 openings in restaurants and hotels. Even as vacancies in that industry have fallen from their July peak, quitting and hiring have stayed strong, “suggesting that some of the hiring difficulties might be easing,” says Nick Bunker, director of research for Indeed, a leading job site.

Still, since there were 6.9 million unemployed Americans in November, that means there were 1.5 available jobs for each unemployed person, the most on record dating back two decades.

source: USA Today