After two years of leaving my house as little as possible, I’ve started venturing back out into the real world, and the sheer number of “Help Wanted” signs I see taped to drive-thru windows and posted in lobbies is impossible to ignore.
According to my unscientific count, “Now Hiring” signs in the metro now officially outnumber all the signs offering to buy my ugly home and pay cash for my junk car combined. According to experts, we are experiencing The Great Resignation, a moment in history so important that it already has its own Wikipedia entry.
The number of employees who quit their jobs in the United States each month is measured in millions and tracked by the Department of Labor. Typically those numbers rise and fall like the wave pool at White Water Bay Hurricane Harbor, but apparently, the numbers began climbing ten years ago and never stopped. According to the New York Times, 1.56 million people quit their jobs in August 2009; in August of 2021, the number was 4.27 million. That would be like everybody in Oklahoma saying “take this job and shove it” at the exact same time.