The Great Resign

We started breaking records in April 2021, and the highs keep climbing higher: Nearly 4 million people in the United States have quit their jobs each month since April, a quitting trend unlike any we have seen since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking this data. Experts are using phrases like "The Great Resign" and "Turnover Shock," and academics have even introduced a new branch of writing deemed "Quit Lit" ("lit" = literature).

Buoyed by the unmooring of a global pandemic, Americans are rethinking how they want to spend their time at work and what their new trajectory will be. Employers are scrambling to hire, and employees are continuing to make life-altering decisions to step away and pursue something new. According to Business Insider, job openings have climbed for the past seven months and have tapped record highs for five consecutive months.

Interestingly, the Great Resign of 2021 has impacted all major industry sectors, and economists suggest that if the quit stats remain this high, an even larger realignment of how we consider work could be coming. For many, resignations are spurred by a quarantine-inspired disgruntlement, a desire for higher pay or better benefits, childcare needs, virus concerns, and an overall rethinking of work and life priorities.

According to an article this week in Harvard Business Review, this startling trend should spur employers to also do some rethinking about how best to build a healthy, invigorating workplace to encourage good workers to stay. If people are unhappy, what can we do to offer them work that is necessary, fulfilling, and impactful?

What if we bring that same question out of the business world and before us as a church? If people are unhappy, what can we do to offer them work that is necessary, fulfilling, and impactful? These kinds of remarkable cultural trends are exactly where our church and our faith should step in, pressing us to seek answers alongside those who are pondering new directions.

If people are seeking, what ultimately are they looking for? What moral and ethical markers are guiding the life-changing decisions they make? How might we bring the peace, hope, and love of Jesus into these ponderings?

Hear Paul's words to the people of Athens in Acts 17:27-28:

God [made all the nations] so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.

Surely many of those seeking have no idea that what they ultimately need is a Holy Spirit-grounded faith in God and his good plan for their life. Who needs to hear Paul's reminder above in your circles at home, at work, or in your community? How will you speak hope into a nation that is actively seeking a new way?

Peace on your week,

Jennie