The Great Resignation is taking root around the world

“The Great Resignation is people saying, ‘Whatever the situation is, I want better,'” Patrecia Ming Buckley told CNN Business. The 35-year-old, who is based in Sydney, made the decision to leave her job at the consultancy EY last August.Two years since Covid-19 disrupted lives around the planet, the United States doesn’t have a monopoly on the factors driving “The Great Resignation.” Dissatisfaction with working conditions, uninspiring jobs and bad bosses has gone global, as has a desire to seek out a better deal from companies short on staff.The data for other markets often lags. But the latest figures now show that resignations have jumped in the United Kingdom, Australia and France, too. And while experts say a wave of quitting hasn’t materialized in countries like Germany and Singapore, surveys indicate workers there are also eying the exits.A December survey by jobs site Indeed of roughly 1,000 workers in Singapore found that almost half of respondents were unsure if they’d stay in their current positions over the next six months. Nearly a quarter intended to leave their employer in the first half of this year. LinkedIn data for January showed a notable increase in the number of workers switching industries in Spain, the Netherlands and Italy compared to early 2021.And in a study of workers commissioned by messaging company Slack, which covers Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Japan and France, openness to looking for a new job has ticked up every quarter since June.”It’s this recalibration that people have had where they’re rethinking the role of work in their lives,” said Brian Elliott, a senior vice president at Slack who heads up the Future Forum initiative. “They’re rethinking — not only in terms of things like compensation — but also, clearly, things like flexibility, purpose, balance.” Where’s the wave?Anthony Klotz, a professor of business administration at Texas A&M University who’s credited with coining the phrase “The Great Resignation,” identified trends in late 2020 that he thought could catalyze a transformation of the US labor market.There was a backlog of people who wanted to leave their jobs, since people largely stayed put during the initial phase of the pandemic. Reports of burnout were widespread. People were asking big questions about the purpose of life while sitting on large piles of savings. And there was the potential for friction as those who had been working remotely and now prioritized flexibility were called back into the office.The theory was spot on: In 2021, 47.8 million workers in the United States left their jobs voluntarily, the highest number since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking full-year data in 2001. The number of quitters remained elevated in January and February of this year.

In some cases, people left the labor market to care for children or elderly relatives. Shortages of workers in industries like retail and hospitality boosted demand for labor, encouraging people to leverage a competitive market for a role with better benefits or pay. People in desk jobs, who were tired of long pandemic hours and Zoom meetings, started to decide they’d had enough. “I was wearing way too many hats for one person,” said Bobbi Conclin, who quit her job in purchasing and sales at Cintas last month. The 25-year-old, who is based in New Jersey, said she was burned out from working 10- to 12-hour days, and started a new role at an e-commerce company days later.The factors Klotz identified aren’t exclusive to the United States. But debate has been heated over whether the Great Resignation has arrived in other job markets.”When the labor market gets really tight, it’s when there’s more opportunity available,” said Mamertino.In professions like nursing, especially, there are signs that burnout is reaching unsustainable levels. A survey of more than 9,500 nurses by the UK’s Royal College of Nursing published late last year found that 57% of respondents were thinking about leaving their jobs or actively planning to leave. The top reasons given were feeling undervalued and feeling exhausted.Ming Buckley, the Sydney-based worker who left EY — one of the “Big 4” accounting firms — said mental health also played a big role in her decision to depart. “I just started to feel like I was part of a big machine,” she said. “I never saw myself as someone who would be part of the race to climb the corporate ladder.”She took a few months off and recently started interviewing. This time, she’s looking for a part-time role at a nonprofit — something that aligns more closely with her values, and will allow her to launch a coaching and mentoring business on the side. It’s an epiphany — helped along by the pandemic.”I don’t think people woke up one day and were super unhappy with their jobs,” Ming Buckley said. “I think it’s been building for years and years and years.”