Low on Confidence, Americans Hold on to Their Jobs

The low-hiring, low-firing dynamic in the U.S. labor market is closely mirrored by workers’ unwillingness to leave their current jobs. As our chart shows, the quits rate, i.e. quits as a percentage of total employment, has fallen to levels last seen in 2015, as workers have lost confidence in finding a better, or any other job elsewhere.

Back in 2022, when more than 50 million Americans took part in 'the Great Resignation', workers were brimming with confidence to find better pay or better career opportunities elsewhere in a red hot labor market, where job openings vastly outnumbered jobseekers. After peaking between November 2021 and April 2022, when almost 4.5 million people quit per month on average, the movement steadily lost steam, however, and the number and rate of people voluntarily leaving their job gradually returned to pre-pandemic levels.