Next year, employers likely to see surge in people quitting

[babylonsister]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/80124.html?storylink=omni_popular

Next year, employers likely to see surge in people quitting

By Diane Stafford | Kansas City Star


The job market remains the worst since 1983, but November's unemployment rate improvement — from 10.2 percent to 10 percent — may begin feeding an employee exodus.

Based on surveys, several management consulting and human resource organizations said about half of U.S. workers are likely to try to change jobs next year.

Among the indicators:

-- Right Management surveyed 900 workers and found that 60 percent intend to leave their jobs in 2010.

-- The 2009 Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations Report said 55 percent of employees plan to change jobs, careers or industries “when the economy recovers.”

-- CareerBuilder.com surveyed 4,285 full-time, private-sector employees. Forty percent said they had difficulty staying motivated in their current jobs, and 24 percent said they didn’t feel loyal to their current employers.

Signs that job cuts are easing have prompted management experts to warn employers.

"The best workers are mobile in any economy," a Right Management missive said. “Employee turnover is expected to rise next year,” partly because research shows “many workers are unhappy with their present jobs.”

A Workforce Management magazine story last month said “layoffs, pay cuts and other fallout from the recession have devastated employee engagement.”

Experts in employee retention say staff-cutting and budget-cutting employers must move quickly to restore pay cuts and reward employees or risk losing them next year.

[SmileyRose]

1. I'm one of them.

I took a 30% cut to help save the company and my job. I've taken on A LOT of new responsiblities normally given to college graduates (I am not) and have been told repeated by the ownership how impressed they are with my performance.

Not that a pay cut is easy for anyone but I already live near the bottom of wage earners. A 30% pay cut isn't a difference of whether I can afford my I-phone contract and/or take that big vacation I was planning. For us it's a matter of can we pay for my husband's generics AND pay the light bill. (and we were already pretty much down to ramen noodles and oatmeal)

So now that they are turning a profit, thanks to enough cuts an a slightly improved economy, at some point I will be expecting not only a restoration of my former salary, but a little something extra to sweeten the deal too.

[Ikonoklast]

8. Good luck with that.

Once that money is given back to employers, or the business owners, seldom will employees ever see it again, unless the employer is contractually obligated to do so.

The work is still getting done for less wages paid, and the employer figures that can go on forever, so why bother bringing pay levels back to where they were?


I learned that the hard way, after an employer cried poverty at negotiation time, we froze wages and benefits, and then two months later the clueless bastard came around to show everyone the pictures of the new forty foot Sea Ray he bought.

Going broke my ass, they are just greedy fucksticks.

You should ask management if they have all taken a reduction in pay, for the "good of the company". There are more than one ongoing concern still making money in this economy, using 'tough times' as an excuse to screw over their employees.

[SmileyRose]

10. They have

this is a small family run business of less than 10 "non family" employees. All the family members have taken larger cuts than I have and have taken on most of the work left when positions were cut. I keep the financials so I know where every penny of the business goes. In fact, they took large personal cuts long before they asked anyone else to do so.

I want to believe these are good people but we'll see. If they fail to put up at some point I'll go shopping. Once the replacement is found I'll simply go in and say put up or shut up (in nicer terms of course).

[Ikonoklast]

12. Good for you.

Most people would just lay down and take it.

It's one thing to have everyone all pull together as a team, and keep the business afloat in tough times, and another thing entirely to be the one slogging ot out in the trenches with management cheering you on from the sidelines, never getting their hands dirty, or taking any hits.


Worst business I ever worked for was family owned. Bunch of thieves, liars, and outright idiots who inherited it from the old man, who was actually a smart guy and good to work for.

They had to sell out, or be forced out of business, at the end. I saw the hand-writing on the wall, and had left two years previous to that, after twenty-four years of busting my ass for a bunch of ungrateful shits.

And that was back in a strong economy, when even the dumb business owners were making money.

[MadMaddie]

11. Did the CEO folks take cuts in pay? I am guessing they

didn't, everyone in most companies have to suffer but not leadership!

Best Wishes!!

[FBaggins]

2. Turnover will certainly rise if the economy improves... but this is ridiculous

To imply that half (or more) of the employees out there plan on changing jobs is taking it way too far.

First the facts... turnover over the last year and a half has been understandably low (who want to quit one job when they don't know if they can get another? How many jobs are out there that can afford to offer a premium to incent someone to switch?). There's no question that this has created a "backlog" of sorts of employees who would otherwise have moved on but can't right now.

Certainly this means that the rate will increase if the economy improves.

BUT... that increase is unlikely (IMO) to even get back up the the "normal" turnover rate while unemployment rates are high... and potential relocating employees worry about selling their existing homes.

People who have a job that can pay the bills and a home they can afford are simply not rocking the boat right now. They're putting up with lots more than they otherwise would.

On edit - I note the source of the statistics look like companies that make money when people change jobs. :) Perhaps more "wishful thinking" than reality.

[laughingliberal]

3. Oh, then they'll whine about employees they've been lording it over past couple of years quitting

I can't wait to hear it. Let's see if they do what's needed to keep the employees they want to keep.


Health care industry has never learned there is a level of pay and benefits below which they can not go without suffering a nursing shortage. The truth is that for most of the years we have had shortages there have been enough nurses licensed to fully staff most facilities. But the ones who did not absolutely have to keep doing it to survive left rather than put up with the stagnant wages and abusive working conditions. Of course, the shortage has saved them a lot of money in demanding twice the work out of those who have stayed.

[Juche]

19. I believe several hundred thousand have left the field

I don't remember, I read the stat years ago. But hundreds of thousands of people are trained LPNs and RNs who left the field due to stress, working conditions and wages.

Besides, even if you offer more money if the job makes you miserable people are going to quit.

[laughingliberal]

20. I lost a job a couple of years ago and, after about a month off, realized I can't return

I struggled and kept pushing for years to meet the increased demands even after I was suffering with some pretty severe fibromyalgia. Finances are desperate without a job but, realistically, I just can't think of a single area of nursing I could manage to perform in, anymore. Sad thing is, if the workload was what it was when I started in the early 80's I could still do that. But I estimate the amount of productivity considered acceptable now is about double what it was then.

Only consolation I have is I'm poor as hell but at least I'm not using up the last dregs of my life and energy contributing to their damn bottom line anymore.

[abelenkpe]

4. good luck

I hope the economy improves enough for workers to begin to be able to demand better pay and conditions but honestly with outsourcing, off-shoring and an unstable world economy it might be best to be happy one has a job at all. Hope I'm wrong about that.

[Deja Q]

5. If small businesses crop up, I will be out there starting up my own design business.

I love my current job, but under a set of circumstances I'd change to another field if it were to support a healthy income.

A Workforce Management magazine story last month said “layoffs, pay cuts and other fallout from the recession have devastated employee engagement.”

Too true. Companies indeed create the conditions of which they blame their employees for.

[HughMoran]

6. We had one leave just last week.

she got better pay and benefits than our small business could afford :shrug: We need healthcare reform NOW.

[shanti]

7. you can include me

and i'm retiring. it's the boomer landslide.

[mrbarber]

9. Company I worked for moaned and cried about "hard economic times"

when raises were handed out, and a month later in a morning meeting an e-mail was sent out to all the managers about how the company had done record profits that quarter.

Needless to say, there were MANY pissed off individuals that day. I was one of them.

[backscatter712]

13. Take this job and shove it!!!

It's 'bout time we start seeing signs of the job market coming back.

Employers are going to have to start treating their workers better, if they want to keep them...

[tonysam]

14. If there are few jobs being created, there's not likely to be an exodus

of workers leaving--voluntarily.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

15. I'd be glad to have a small business.

However, you have to have customers. I have things to sell (jewelry - I string beads), but no customers.

Supply-side economics is exactly backwards.

If there is no demand, and no discretionary money in consumers' pockets, you got merchandise and/or services not being bought.

[Hydra]

16. This would probably be true

If a real recovery were on the horizon. I rather doubt that being the case. Wall St. is talking about a jobless recovery and I think they're just grasping at straws regarding the numbers. There's nothing solid to build off of. Where is the green energy revolution, for instance?

[Lithos]

17. Two specific comments

1) The part to draw from this article is not the recovery, but the fact that good people can move no matter the economy. It is just made easier if employers have more or less stabilized in their job cuts.

2) You can draw a lot of analogy about the "green" revolution to the internet revolution which everyone was preaching for years about. From about 1997/8 up to about 2001 (dot com bubble burst), there was nothing but a constant drum beat about the internet revolution being here and now and that you had better get on board. Five years later and one bubble later to remove the more outrageous things, we are pretty much living the core of that dream. Most people indeed now have a fair amount of their lives attached to the Net and its related technologies. Business is alive and well on the net. The green revolution won't be a "loud" thing, just a gradual movement that way.

L-

[Juche]

18. Do they think it is better somewhere else?

I'm not ragging on them, and things like this (employees threatening en masse to leave their employers unless they offer more stimulation, better wages, better treatment, etc) is one of the few forms of leverage American workers have to intimidate management now that unions have been crushed. So good for employees for voting with their feet.

But do they think it'll be better at the new jobs? If so, why? Isn't the process of offering lower wages and benefits, less job security, less concern for employee well being and more responsibilities occurring all across the economy?