Speaker 1: It's Thursday, March thirty one. I'm Oscar Emiras from the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Many people who left their jobs during the Great Resignation
Speaker 1: are having regrets about of those that left didn't think
Speaker 1: it was a good idea after all, and many aren't
Speaker 1: even planning to stay very long in their new positions.
Speaker 1: Reasons why they aren't happy ranged from the new role
Speaker 1: being different from what they expected, or even missing the
Speaker 1: culture of their old job. Paul Davidson, economics and Jobs
Speaker 1: reporter at USA Today, joined us for more. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, Paul, sure, thank you. Well, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the Great Resignation, all these people quitting throughout the pandemic
Speaker 1: looking for you know, a lot of different things, either
Speaker 1: being able to work remotely, better work life balance, higher pay,
Speaker 1: better working conditions. All this stuff prompted a lot of
Speaker 1: people to leave their jobs. Until now, a lot of
Speaker 1: the stories that we had been hearing, we're all very
Speaker 1: positive type things, people moving on to bigger, better things.
Speaker 1: But this is kind of the thing I was waiting for,
Speaker 1: because you knew that a lot of people probably had regrets.
Speaker 1: And now a new poll is showing that a lot
Speaker 1: of people that didn't quit their jobs during this time
Speaker 1: are regretting it or they're just not happy with the
Speaker 1: new position that they have. So Paul tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about it. Yeah, I mean, it was this
Speaker 1: great phenomenon. Every month you had about four million or
Speaker 1: so people leaving their jobs, mostly to switch to other jobs.
Speaker 1: No doubt a lot of people who did quit are
Speaker 1: happy or switch jobs are satisfied. But we decided to
Speaker 1: survey it, and Harris did a survey for us, and
Speaker 1: about one in five people regret either quitting their job,
Speaker 1: and a similar percentage a similar share regret starting their
Speaker 1: new job. But then if you dig a little deeper,
Speaker 1: and when they asked him, you satisfied enough with your
Speaker 1: job to stay in it long term or just to
Speaker 1: stay in your job. Just of those jobs switchers said
Speaker 1: they want to stay in their job, and a third
Speaker 1: are already look for a new position. So in one
Speaker 1: way or another, you know, it seems like most of
Speaker 1: the people who who quit or switch jobs are are
Speaker 1: not really content, you know, ab out and out regret it.
Speaker 1: But others you know, aren't really content inherent new jobs.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you had sort of this kind of frenzy,
Speaker 1: I mean, driven by the pandemic and the worker shortages
Speaker 1: that the pandemics spawned. You know, lots of job openings.
Speaker 1: People really employers really struggle to find workers, and so
Speaker 1: there's a plethora of jobs out there enticing a lot
Speaker 1: of people, a lot of people, so higher wages, largely
Speaker 1: higher wages, and just you know, new and different opportunities.
Speaker 1: They were being rude and courted by new employers and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, very exciting, you know, and in the same
Speaker 1: time they're maybe a little burnt out from working hard
Speaker 1: at their current job in their pandemic, and so they switched.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you do things very quickly, sometimes
Speaker 1: it doesn't always work out. And that seems to be
Speaker 1: what this survey is showing. You have to wonder exactly why,
Speaker 1: you know, why they're not so happy. So through some
Speaker 1: of these other stats that we got through this, it
Speaker 1: really seems like just the change really wasn't the right
Speaker 1: thing for them, so said, the new role was different
Speaker 1: from what they expected when they got there, missed the
Speaker 1: culture of the previous job, So you know, kind of
Speaker 1: you might have been kind of happy, maybe left in
Speaker 1: a hurry or something for something bigger and better, and
Speaker 1: then man, I really missed the people there or how
Speaker 1: things operated. So that's what a lot of people were experiencing.
Speaker 1: Some people said they were just focusing too much on
Speaker 1: the money and when they got there, it wasn't what
Speaker 1: they expected. Yeah, that's exactly right about a quarter, so
Speaker 1: they didn't really fully evaluate the pros and cons. Like
Speaker 1: you said, about a quarter, Mr. Culture, thirty six percent
Speaker 1: said they weren't really happy with the work life balance
Speaker 1: at the new job. So yeah, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it seems to have to do with the speed
Speaker 1: with which it all happened. I mean, you know, you
Speaker 1: have companies in many cases desperate to hire workers. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of them have been looking for months
Speaker 1: because of these workers shortages. And so you know what
Speaker 1: some staffing people are telling me is that, you know,
Speaker 1: they're trying to get somebody in quickly, and you know,
Speaker 1: they may in some cases over state what exactly the
Speaker 1: new job is going to be. Like they may promise
Speaker 1: certain hours, very flexible, very reasonable, nine to five hours,
Speaker 1: and then it may be something different. They may overstate
Speaker 1: the sort of content of the job, exactly what they'll
Speaker 1: be doing, making sound like it's a more creative role,
Speaker 1: when in fact it's maybe more logistical or administrative. So
Speaker 1: you know, it was a very fast process in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases. And so yeah, the people who switched
Speaker 1: may be switching because they have sort of one thing
Speaker 1: in mind that's really exciting them. It could be either
Speaker 1: wage higher wage when when they haven't had a raise
Speaker 1: in a long time. In some cases, you know, people
Speaker 1: a lot of people who really want to stay work remotely.
Speaker 1: You know, they knew they were going to work remotely.
Speaker 1: I mean they did work remotely during the pandemic, but
Speaker 1: then they not a cases, got called back to the
Speaker 1: office at least for some days a week, or they
Speaker 1: knew they were going to get called back, so they
Speaker 1: just had it in their mind they didn't want to
Speaker 1: go back to an office. They liked working from home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for a lot of companies, that part of it was
Speaker 1: all was like an evolving thing and where they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can work remotely permanently, all that stuff quickly changed.
Speaker 1: This one was also interesting too because a lot of
Speaker 1: people just kind of rage quit. They just said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm done with this, I'm gonna leave. Of those people
Speaker 1: try to get their job back right, that was a
Speaker 1: survey that another company did. Yeah, I mean you think
Speaker 1: about certainly some lower paid workers in what's considered these
Speaker 1: frontline industries restaurants, retail. They're working really hard because a
Speaker 1: lot of their colleagues aren't working for whatever reason. They're
Speaker 1: they're they're workers shortages, so they're like working over time,
Speaker 1: you know, getting a little burned out. In some cases,
Speaker 1: they don't feel like they were appreciated, and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are kind of quitting their rage
Speaker 1: and again a quick move and maybe they again took
Speaker 1: another job and uh again, may not have fully evaluated
Speaker 1: the ramifications of maybe just quitting and then not having
Speaker 1: income or quitting for another job. But you know, they
Speaker 1: really didn't think through the other job in terms of
Speaker 1: the lifestyle they're working, conditions, the benefits. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of reality setting in totally. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's so many angles with the great resignation, the Great
Speaker 1: reshuffling they call it. You know, this is another angle
Speaker 1: that hadn't really been explored until now, So good to
Speaker 1: see that we can get some numbers on it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, not necessarily happy having
Speaker 1: left what they did have Paul Davidson, Economics and Jobs
Speaker 1: reporter at USA Today. Thank you very much for joining us. Sure,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. I'm Oscar Ameres and this has
Speaker 1: been reopening America. Don't forget effort Today's big news stories.
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