Think you deserve better than your current job? You’re not alone. A record number of American workers — 4.3 million in August — are leaving their jobs in what has been dubbed “The Great Resignation“.
Australian employers are nervous that the trend could spread across the Pacific, as it has to other developed nations. There is growing evidence that an increasing number of workers are fed up and looking for new opportunities. Microsoft, PwC and HR experts estimate two in five Aussies feel this way, while other researchers suggest it could up to three in five.
But maybe don’t flip your boss the bird and storm out just yet. While Aussies might feel similarly dissatisfied, there is a reason to believe they might not rip their aprons off at the same rates as their overseas counterparts: our government isn’t on their side.
The pandemic has made working life harder for many, reinforced the preciousness of social activities and leisure, and reminded us that life is short. This has prompted many people to reassess their current employment deal and look around for better pay and conditions like ongoing remote work, more paid leave, and flexibility of hours to catch up on lost holidays and family gatherings.
It’s getting hot in here
Job dissatisfaction alone doesn’t result in mass walkouts. Plenty of miserable people stay in dead-end jobs for a long time. To finally quit, workers also need to be confident there are better alternatives out there.
Most people’s ideal alternative is a better-paying job. But over the last three decades, many Seek searches have not been plentiful. That’s because of a little-discussed but deliberate government policy to keep it that way.
Since the 1970s, officials have worried that a “hot” economy with too many job opportunities would force employers to pay their workers more to secure their loyalty, and that this upward pressure could kick off an inflationary spiral. To dampen workers’ expectations, governments kept a tight rein on unions, public sector jobs and welfare benefits, and many central banks kept interest rates higher than strictly necessary to prevent too many businesses from expanding and hiring.
But this approach emerged discredited from the global financial crisis, and now the Biden administration has sounded its death knell. The US Federal Reserve, under Trump’s surprisingly good chair nominee Jerome Powell, has resisted calls to hike interest rates to cut job opportunities, even as inflation rises. And the Democratic majority in Congress, meanwhile, has been writing trillion-dollar cheques to create jobs in social services, infrastructure, green energy and more.
The result: there are now more vacancies than unemployed workers in America, which allows applicants to be choosy. New York Times journalist Ezra Klein has called it the “take this job and shove it” economy. When employers began whingeing that they couldn’t attract or retain workers with their usual payrates, President Biden bluntly responded: “pay them more”.
Morrison doesn’t want ‘jobs and growth’
There are signs Australia could be heading in a similar direction. Those who have accumulated “COVID savings” will soon start splashing the cash, which will increase the number of jobs and their pay rates — just ask the pub owners who offered over $40 base rates for recent “Freedom Day” shifts in Sydney and Melbourne.
The Reserve Bank has also pledged to keep interest rates low to try to lift employment and wages. And Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has indicated he’d like to take unemployment lower than he previously thought possible.
A big factor in employment decisions is the dole — if it’s too low to live on comfortably, jobseekers must jump at the next available position instead of holding out for a better one. Yet Canberra has quickly slammed the door on liveable welfare payments as vaccination rates rise, even though many venues still face capacity limits.
The Morrison government also opposed the Fair Work Commission’s recent minimum wage rise, unlike many US states and Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in the UK. Australia’s recovery spending has also been far less ambitious than our major allies, as the PM seeks another “business-led recovery”. Finally, the Coalition is keen to help their mates in industries like agriculture by resuming the flow of temporary migrant workers, even introducing new visa categories to help the sector avoid raising wages to attract local workers.
Much of our present jobs growth is being eaten up by overqualified applicants. And once the post-lockdown splurge runs out of puff, the lack of government support will likely dampen workers’ confidence to take career risks.
Labor has promisingly suggested a full employment white paper if it wins the next election, though why further investigation is needed while other nations make concrete changes remains unclear.
In the meantime, one can only hope the Coalition’s intransigence isn’t strong enough to stop “The Great Resignation” from arriving on our shores. Otherwise Australians could be stuck at their same old desks with their same old pay for many years to come.
I agree with higher wages, but many workers seem to assume Someone Else (a migrant?) will do the work they don’t want to do. Someone Else will pick up the garbage at 5am. Someone Else will wait on them a Sunday morning. Someone Else will check out their groceries at 9.30pm on a Tuesday night.
By all means raise wages! But the reality is that Someone has to work outside of M-F 9-5. In a job that may not be ‘meaningful and fulfilling’ or ‘align with my identity.’
It looks suspiciously like the lives many seek are designed around Someone Else being available to help them enjoy their new leisure time and time with family and friends. It is interesting that a bunch of people are going to resign to spend more time…going out with friends for drinks to be waited by Someone Else.
The Someone Else’s of the world would like to know is higher wages it for us? How high? What do we get out of this? Or is the plan just to make migrants do it? Oh for the love of Someone Else!
In the US it is those Someone Elses that are quitting their jobs for new employment. Mostly in the same roles they had, but for better wages. The low income, menial jobs, as you have called them in the past.
And the reason is because the unemployment rate in the US is much lower than ours, so it is less attractive for people to try to change jobs here.
Lower wage workers seek a better deal like everyone else.
The issue is progressive middle class growing disdain for what seems like most of the workforce. It’s just an interesting attitude that they deserve meaningful well paid jobs but also rely on menial essential services and even well paid boring jobs many show up and do.
Some seem set on a dream life that relies on a lot of other ppl at all incomes continuing to go to work
Who’d have thunk it? Suppression of unions and the power of labour gets exposed for the brutal fraud it is by COVID-19 simply restricting that fluidity of global labour, the last last conquered frontier of Capitalism, suddenly reversed.
Why quit when all you have to do in some sectors is join the legions of casual workers and suffer the indignity of an uncertain income in exchange for a higher hourly rate? All under the guise of “flexible” work arrangements which funny enough is mostly flexible for the employer. And good for the economy, apparently.
Those casuals are often found in industries that will be required to support the new Dream Team. Just picture Janice and Kevin at the bar yakking about how they quit their dead end low paid jobs as Mark the casual in a dead end jobs pours them a glass of wine.
Sure, we need to lead from the front on getting better pay and conditions but the question of why exactly is going to prop up these dream lives has been largely silent and it often involves low paid casuals who as you say don’t get a fair shake of the sauce bottle. I just love how the author can write a mention of going on holiday with no acknowledgement of who is meant to facilitate that holiday?
It looks suspiciously like a bunch of working class, students and migrants will get a bit of a bump in order to prop up the privileged who have sought better lives yet still rely heavily on the lowest workers on the totem pole. There’s no real long term plan for the supermarket worker to get a better life, just maybe some more breaks or a little higher pay. Be happy with your crumbs while everyone else transforms their lives.
You are missing the point.
In the US, people aren’t quitting “dead end low paid jobs” for better jobs. Largely they are quitting so they can work the same job for more pay with a different employer.
I’m aware. Workers at that level are switching around.
The issue is that a portion of people seem to believe no one should do a crap job. Certainly not them, even if unemployed. It’s just interesting who middle class Australians think will do the crap jobs? Especially now the mainstream has decided it’s over migrants.
I just saw a comment today from an unemployed person that they were outraged to be sent to a job below their qualifications.
I’m just interested in the ideas behind the Great Resignation, is really the plan that liveable welfare should be offered until ppl find a job worth doing? How long do you get to find the right fit? I’m fair, I think 12 months then after that you take what is going. That’s generous.
Wages should rise, but there is always going to be a bottom. I’m just curious who is exempt from the bottom and why. While low income workers seek better wages within those jobs there’s also a portion saying welfare is preferable to menial work and the govt is obligated to support you into a great job that fits your identity.
It’s just mysterious who will empty the bins?
Where would we find this comment?
You won’t. Camille Smith makes claims like this all the time, but never backs them up with evidence.
Head to The Conversation for today’s delight where the long term unemployed lay out their terms abs conditions for going to work.
You can also go to Reddit Australia or Reddit Centrelink or Reddit CentrelinkOz. Or check out the forums at Whirlpool which has a long running thread on how to avoid work.
Or this article which seems to imply a living welfare be paid until a good job is found. Who will empty the bins I don’t know. These articles state we don’t have to do bad jobs but other articles want to cut migration. Mystery bin emptiers.
Every day I see comments online that requiring those on welfare to do menial work is like a hate crime against the middle class.
Also today we have people who say they will only work if there is respect – what does this even mean? And another who said they are owed a vocation and would rather be on the dole than drive a forklift.
That’s just The Conversation today. I’m sure the other sites have more delights to make a menial worker feel it’s all a waste of time.
Sentiments resonate with an article and comments in an investment media outlet, a finance type claiming (undefined) immigration should remain suspended etc. as it would solve unemployment, but with no data to support (although presumably data literate).
More telling were BTL comments e.g. no immigration then JobSeeker can be ditched and ‘welfare‘ wastrels can be forced out to work; straight out of the US radical right libertarian playbook joined at the hip with eugenics.
It’s a left wing idea.
That it is only fair to the working class if the same rules apple to everyone long term out of work, that a degree or so called skills is not a free pass out of menial work.
This is egalitarian left wing ideology. It is classist elitist right wing ideology that a degree qualified professional can not work for years unless it is a good job. The idea that proles mop the floor while their betters seek enlightenment is old school right wing feudalism.
‘left wing’? How much do you know about Australia? Then again many people still describe The Age and SMH as ‘left wing’; signifies how far the Overton window has been ‘nudged’ to the libertarian right in Australia….. masquerading as centrist.
It is left wing that educated people are not a special class above others. That is egalitarian.
I’m fair. 12 months of liveable Centrelink no obligations choose your job. After that too bad you can do what is going. I think that is very fair. And a raise in wages and conditions for all of us of course.
I go back to work this week finally and I’ll try to forget the comments I’ve seen lately that middle class people would rather die than work in a supermarket. Truly bizarre.
If I have time once back at work before my sub cancels I’ll log on to the next instalment of we’re all getting better jobs and no migrants! I can’t wait for the part they reveal who emptied the bins.
In my home town it is not migrants. Do wake up.
That’s my point. Many of us locals do go to work at low level jobs. This article says we can quit our jobs and be paid living welfare until we get a better job.
This all sounds awesome. I’m just curious when we all quit our jobs and go on the dole who will work at the supermarket? Crikey also wants to can migrants. Robots aren’t up to speed yet.
While we’re all living our best lives who is making that happen? If we all quit and get paid enough living welfare to buy take out once in while who will cook it?
It’s not just wages ppl are talking about. It’s ‘meaningful’ work. It sounds exciting until you realise our new meaningful life of vacation and events requires ppl willing to do boring work. And no migrants.
It’s all confusing until you realise the new work rules of meaningful work really only apply to some special people. Oh well maybe they will give the rest of us across the spectrum some compensation for supporting the new dream lives of a special emerging elite.
Most of my family, friends and I had or have “meaningful” work, doctors, teachers and public servants. They have reasonable wages and security, though the teachers and public servants’ wages have not risen or, in teachers’ cases, have fallen over the years. They still long to quit, due to appalling levels of overwork, mental exhaustion and burnout. My public servant friend has worked weekends for the last ten years to keep up with work demands and it can only get worse since despite rising levels of
resignation (usually due to bullying or overwork) they are not being replaced and remaining workers are told to take up the slack. I see the medical workers trudge in the door, often hours later than the end of their scheduled shift, exhausted and wondering how much longer they can continue to work wrapped in PPE and survive the predicted increased level of covid patients. I retired from forty years of teaching with burnout after years of stress and vastly increased workloads at senior high school level and another younger family member is considering retiring from teaching due to overwork and bullying .
It seems to me that if you’re lucky enough to get secure, meaningful work in Australia at present you will be pressured by clients, careerist bosses and employers to work to a level that can be damaging to your physical and mental health. I suspect that the entire concept of “meaningful work” has lost its applicability to everyday life in Australia.
I can’t agree that you should get the dole for 12 months and after that, you’re on your own. That condemns people to poverty and destitution including the most vulnerable – women and children. That is a callous thing to assert. It is often not possible for people to get work in 12 months. I have been out of work for 18 months before my current job of 26 years. I really worked on the side but that was a pain and often more trouble than it was worth and you were always vulnerable to being outed and the employer was unwilling to put you on the books. It is not easy being out of work and I wonder, I thought you were more progressive in your ideas but cutting of social support will impoverish children and dependent women and the disabled and other disadvantaged folk. Crime will rise and you can bet a recession would not be too far off. I am sure many in the business community would agree with you but should we really be appealing to their prejudices and self interest? I was a confessed job snob because I was sick and tired of being fired after 3 weeks or 3 months or 1 year because the employer ran out of work or didn’t like me. So I waited until this one came along but that too has not been easy all the time. Victory in work comes in small steps and no one should be forced to work for bad work or low pay or pay below the award.
“Since the 1970s, officials have worried that a “hot” economy with too many job opportunities would force employers to pay their workers more to secure their loyalty, and that this upward pressure could kick off an inflationary spiral. To dampen workers’ expectations, governments kept a tight rein on unions, public sector jobs and welfare benefits, and many central banks kept interest rates higher than strictly necessary to prevent too many businesses from expanding and hiring.”
Snake oil. Standard Rightist formulation to deceive the simple-minded.
Far from “an inflationary spiral” or “a “hot” economy” being similarly unwelcome with dwelling prices, the powerful interests that own our political class have long demanded policy that drives dwelling prices ever higher. Anything that dampens investors’ expectations is ferociously opposed.
So this fairy tale is just another of the fairy tales used to hide a policy of cutting wages while inflating assets.
There are lots of jobs in my area at the moment.
A whole bunch of my collegues have recently exited the organisation.
Higher wages are being offered.
My wife has just left her hospital job for one with better conditions (and no COVID risk).
This is a GOOD thing.