The great resignation. It’s a phenomenon that started in the middle of this COVID pandemic – and is now responsible for millions of Americans voluntarily exiting their jobs. If you’ve ever thought about quitting your job and starting a brand new career path, read on.
The great resignation.
It’s a phenomenon that started in the middle of this COVID pandemic…and is now responsible for millions of Americans voluntarily exiting their jobs.
In fact, at its peak in July of 2021, it’s been reported that there were over 11M job openings in the US — and according to a Bankrate Job Seeker Survey, done in Aug 2021, 55% of the workforce say they are likely to look for new employment in the next 12 months.
That same study alludes to the fact that there is a paradigm shift going on right now, where employees are indexing more towards personal freedom & life satisfaction, resulting in job seekers valuing flexibility above all other considerations in their new prospective jobs. We are no longer just easily accepting the given conditions of our employment — in this day and age, the workforce is standing up for what they want, and it’s happening across almost every sector and industry.
In this article, we’ll explore 3 key realizations that’s led to this new movement and how it’s changed the landscape of employment, likely for the long term.
Key Factors Contributing To The Great Resignation
1. WFH Works
First, the pandemic proved that “Work-From-Home” can actually work — made possible by the accelerated shift in focus and progression of digital transformation.
According to this KPMG article, the pandemic has accelerated the rate of digital transformation in the workplace by years — with conferencing technology like Zoom and Microsoft Teams leading the way and the rapid growth of nascent digital business models like Door Dash and Peloton following closely by.
We’ve also seen mega retailers like Amazon and Walmart fast-track the enhancement of their ecommerce capabilities — driving even more sales and revenue than before the pandemic.
All of this was made possible during these last two years — where we’ve been forced to work from home.
In fact, outside of entities that have physically suffered from the pandemic lockdowns — like restaurants and in-person service providers, most other corporations have figured out a way to keep their businesses running, all with their employees working remotely.
Now, of course, not all companies were able to weather the storm… there are some casualties. A few really good names had gone under within the last 2 years — but a good majority of the companies out there have learned to adapt and grow within this environment, and are now emerging with more resilience and fervor than ever.
This pandemic basically proved out what we were suspecting all along — that it is possible to have a productive workforce, working outside of the office.
2. More Remote-Able Jobs
Secondly, as the pandemic started to extend longer than anyone had expected and this “work remote situation” started to become less and less temporary, both companies and prospective employees started to realize that location was no longer a barrier to finding and matching good talent to needed job openings.
In the last 2 years, we were all working from home anyways — and it didn’t matter whether you were working from home 5 minutes away from the office or 5 states away from the office — the engagements and experiences of working remotely, were exactly the same.
So as a result — companies started to enable more of their roles to be remote possible and more prospective job candidates started to expand their searches to out of state positions.
And so as you can image, that opens up a lot more opportunities in the job market and so what everyone has come to realize, is that if you were ever thinking of leaving your current employment or transitioning to a different role, for any reason — then now, is potential the best time to do it.
3. The Social Media Economy Has Boomed
And lastly, the social media economy has just exploded during this pandemic period.
You see — in the early 2000s, social media was just getting started, with only a handful of creators actually creating useful or entertaining content.
But now, with almost 20 prominent social media platforms globally, and many more popping up each day and with over 30M creators world wide — this industry as a whole, has now entered into a maturation and sustainment phase, as opposed to the hyper growth phase it experienced in its early years.
What I mean by all of this — is that given the large established base of social media creators and the interest and volume of new creators popping up every single day, the process of social media content creation has now actually become an immensely large business.
As a result, the barriers of entry into this new field have decreased — and now getting into this new type of economy is as easy as ever, with more resources available, than ever before.
If you do a quick search, there are now thousands of channels on YouTube — specializing on how to grow and run a channel on YouTube.
If you do a quick google search, you’ll also find hundreds of agencies that now manage rising social media influencers.
And now there is also a greater influx of video and audio equipment that are specially designed for Podcasting, YouTubing, TikTocking, etc.
These are just a few of the examples of new processes and businesses that are geared towards helping new aspiring creators, start their journey into social media. And so this widespread growth and prevalence of digital content creation, has given a lot of unsatisfied employees in the workforce a new avenue to build and earn income — in a manner in which they now have direct control over what they are doing and are 100% responsible for their own success.
There is definitely an appeal to that — and so we’ve actually seen a great number of traditional 9–5 employees take up this challenge and develop a social media business as either a side hustle or a replacement to their full time jobs.
So you see, this pandemic was just the perfect storm that enabled all of these things to happen…
You had technology, which had advanced enough to a state where it was ready to foster a remote working culture, and as a result it unlocked a good portion of the job market to a wider addressable market.
Then you also had the progression of social media, which has now evolved beyond early adoption and has become more and more mainstream, meaning that there are now more tools and processes readily available for the average person to access and dive into this new business model.
And lastly, the overarching factor on top of all of this, was the pandemic — which gave people more time to reflect internally and forced all of us to re-examine how we used and valued our time.
This pandemic period was just the right mix of the most ripe ingredients to foster this new shift of indexing towards more of what made each and every one of us happier, and breaking the traditional mindset of just grinding at your same job for 40–50 years — and then looking forward to retirement.
In other words, in these last 2 years, the line between our working and personal lives started to blur together so much, that the phrase “life is too short” became more and more of a prominent theme within all of the time we’ve been spending at home — both when we are working and when we aren’t.
So what is the moral of the story here?
In the end, what you have to take away from all of this, is that there are so many avenues of opportunity out there these days — because this wave of digital transformation is extending to almost every industry and function that exists. Basically, there are many more jobs nowadays that can be done remotely — with just a PC and a camera.
So regardless of where you are in life, and what career choices you’ve made up until this point — if you’re not happy doing what you are doing right now — there has never been a better time to search and explore all of the many options out there… to determine what you truly want to do with the rest of your life.
Now I’m not advocating for everyone to go out and haphazardly quit their jobs to be the next TikTok influencer or a cryptocurrency trader or whatever…
But what I am saying is that it’s important to take a step back and look at how the world and the global economy has changed — and after careful reflection, IF you feel that your career or your life needs a change as well, then you shouldn’t be afraid to make that shift, given the now rapidly evolving landscape of the global economy.
For me personally, every chapter that’s closed in my career, whether it was by my personal choice or through circumstances that were out of my control, has always led me to the start of something even better and more exciting — and I suspect and hope that that’ll be the same case for all of you, as well.
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The content here is strictly the opinion of Daniel’s Brew and is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered professional financial, investment, or career advice. Investing and career decisions are personal choices that each individual must make for themselves in accordance with their situation and long term plans. Daniel’s Brew will not be held liable for any outcome as a result of anyone following the opinions provided in this content.
